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They have all turned aside, They have together become corrupt; There is none who does good, No, not one.
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In Your presence is fullness of joy; at Your right hand are pleasures forevermore. Psalm 16:11
Almost anything that gets our full
attention at the exclusion of other joys will eventually kill our joy in everything. That skewed focus is called in our culture an addiction. The Scripture calls it idolatry. The irony is that this misplaced affection ultimately strangles all other affections. This is Satan’s ploy. Satan wants to steal our joy because the “joy of the Lord is [our] strength” (Neh. 8:10). Satan wants our strength; he wants us weak and vulnerable and easy to topple. How healthy the advice is: “Rejoice in the Lord always” (Phil. 4:4). This is a central truth of the Word—the central teaching of Jesus: love the Lord the most. When God is our central affection there is immediate and deep joy in all other things; our joy center widens, our pleasures become many— “pleasures forevermore.” God will never be an addiction. He is truth. And when ultimate truth is our adored love—all other loves take their rightful place and all addictions are broken!
Have all the workers of iniquity no knowledge, Who eat up my people as they eat bread, And do not call on the Lord? 5 There they are in great fear, For God is with the generation of the righteous. 6 You shame the counsel of the poor, But the Lord is his refuge. 4
Oh, that the salvation of Israel would come out of Zion! When the Lord brings back the captivity of His people, Let Jacob rejoice and Israel be glad.
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Psalm 15 The Character of Those Who May Dwell with the Lord A Psalm of David.
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ord,
who may abide in Your tabernacle? Who may dwell in Your holy hill?
He who walks uprightly, And works righteousness, And speaks the truth in his heart; 3 He who does not backbite with his tongue, Nor does evil to his neighbor, Nor does he take up a reproach against his friend; 4 In whose eyes a vile person is despised, But he honors those who fear the Lord; He who swears to his own hurt and does not change; 5 He who does not put out his money at usury, Nor does he take a bribe against the innocent. 2
He who does these things shall never be moved. Psalm 16 The Hope of the Faithful, and the Messiah’s Victory A Michtam of David.
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reserve me, O God, for in You I put my trust.
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