Guest Post by Rob Noland
“Prove me, O LORD, and try me; test my heart and my mind. For your steadfast love is before my eyes, and I walk in your faithfulness. I do not sit with men of falsehood, nor do I consort with hypocrites. I hate the assembly of evildoers, and I will not sit with the wicked. I wash my hands in innocence and go around your altar, LORD, proclaiming Thanksgiving aloud and telling all your wondrous deeds.”- Psalm 26:2-7
There is a stream running through the Psalms that I have often found difficult to swim in, and I suspect that I am not alone (especially among reformed folks). How can a desperate sinner like me pray and sing about his righteousness before God? How can I say, “you have tested me and will find nothing” (Psalm 17:3) or, “I hold back my feet from every evil way, in order to keep your word. I do not turn aside from your rules, for you have taught me.” (Psalm 119:101-102)?
I tell my wife every day that I love her. Of course, I don’t love her perfectly. My love is a needy kind of love that never arises to the perfection of Christ’s love for the church. But I don’t rise up every morning and confess my lack of love for her. How would she feel if I always told her how little I loved her? There are some days that I just feel like shouting from the balcony of our apartment, “I love Amber Noland!” Of course, that would not turn out to be a very practical way of loving her, because it would embarrass her terribly. But there would not be any hypocrisy to it. It would not be appropriate for someone to take me aside and say, “You know, you really shouldn’t say that you love your wife, because you don’t love her perfectly.”
There is also a place in my marriage for me to proclaim my love for her in a different way. I can say to her something like, “Search my internet history, you will find nothing,” or “There hasn’t been a single time this week that I’ve held my gaze on another woman.” She knows very well that this hasn’t always been the case with me, so there are times when she really needs that kind of assurance. Proclaiming my faithfulness to her is an act of love.
I would suggest that the difficulty comes from a certain posture that is right and good in confession, but not normative for praise. The mistaken idea is that we can only ever confess our lack of love for the LORD. Further, we must always come before the LORD and say, “I have not loved you as I ought,” “I have despised your word,” “I have hated your statutes.” We cannot proclaim our obedience to the LORD, even in thankfulness for God’s grace to us, because that would amount to self-righteous boasting.
What I am saying is, our love for the LORD is expressed through our obedience to him. It is appropriate in some contexts to proclaim our love for the LORD by proclaiming our obedience to his word—not out of an expression of self-righteous boasting. It is the Spirit of Christ dwelling in us that enables our obedience, and his work on our behalf that enables us to walk boldly into his holy place. And, of course, we need to regularly confess our lack of love for the LORD, just as sometimes I need to confess to my wife that I have not loved her well. But after we come to the LORD in confession and receive forgiveness, we praise him. It is not self-righteous to praise the LORD. Let all the earth praise the LORD.
