1 I will sing of mercy and justice; to You, O Lord, I will sing praises. 2 I will behave wisely in a perfect way. Oh, when will You come to me? I will walk within my house with a perfect heart. 3 I will set nothing wicked before my eyes; I hate the work of those who fall away; it shall not cling to me. —Psalm 101:1-3
There are actually eight uses of “I will” in this psalm in which David determines that he will do or not do certain things. He wasn’t always successful at this. In fact, at times he failed miserably, but his failures didn’t alter God’s divine standards. The target never moved for David, even when he fell. And the same is true for us. When we fail, we must pull ourselves back to our feet and position ourselves to try once again.
The first goal that David sets is in our verses for today. He begins by determining that his house is going to be a house of praise (v. 1), followed by his determination to practice the same things as the One he praises: to be merciful and just. Mercy and justice, grace and truth—they remind us of keeping the fullness of God always in view in our homes. Too many homes today teach grace but not truth, giving an unbalanced and unscriptural view of God. David declares that he will behave wisely and walk perfectly in his house, and then he petitions the Lord for help in this. He commits to keeping his focus on things that are pure and lovely. The things that draw him away from the Lord he will not allow to cling to him.
In a similar way, the apostle Paul commended and encouraged the believers in Rome by saying, “For your obedience has become known to all. Therefore I am glad on your behalf; but I want you to be wise in what is good, and simple concerning evil. And the God of peace will crush Satan under your feet shortly. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you. Amen” (Romans 16:19-20).
Paul’s use of the word “simple” here means “unmixed.” What David is determining, and what Paul is communicating, is that it is wise not to get mixed up with evil things. Spurgeon put it like this: “Piety must begin at home. Our first duties are those within our own abode. We must have a perfect heart at home, or we cannot keep a perfect way abroad. Notice that these words are part of a song, and that there is no music like the harmony of a gracious life, no psalm so sweet as the daily practice of holiness. Reader, how fares it with your family? Do you sing in the choir and sin in the chamber? Are you a saint abroad and a devil at home? For shame! What we are at home, that we are indeed. He cannot be a good king whose palace is the haunt of vice, nor he a true saint whose habitation is a scene of strife, nor he a faithful minister whose household dreads his appearance at the fireside.”
To summarize David, Paul, and Spurgeon: If you want your home to be blessed, anointed, and powerful, then the first determination in good housekeeping is to treat your home like a house of worship. David said, “To the Lord I will sing praises and prostrate and submit to him in all my ways.” Your house is a house of worship. Someone is being prostrated before and submitted to. The question is, who is it? Is it the God who made heaven and earth? Or is it the god of wickedness and the world? Good housekeeping begins with declaring your home to be a house of worship of the Lord and not just a place where praise songs are played. Set nothing wicked before your eyes, hate what God hates, and love what He loves, and don’t follow those who lead people astray from a proper perspective of God. Begin to treat your home like a house of worship, and you’ve taken a major step toward good housekeeping.
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