“For the Lord is righteous. He loves righteous deeds. The upright shall behold his face.”
– Psalm 11:7
Psalm 11:7, is that not a great verse? Just meditate on it for a moment and then pray according to it. For the Lord is righteous, isn’t that good news today, that the Lord is righteous? Everything God does is right. What if that weren’t true? What if everything, God, the all-powerful creator, sovereign, ruler, and sustainer of all, what if he was evil?
Or what if he could not be depended on to do right? Praise God that the sovereign Lord of the earth is righteous, that everything he does is right. The Lord is righteous. He loves righteous deeds. So as we think about our lives, don’t we want to be righteous? Don’t we want to do that which is right, to think that which is right, to desire that which is right, to speak in ways that are right, to act in ways that are right?
While God loves righteous deeds, Jesus is the only one who is truly righteous.
This verse Psalm 11:7 just drives us to pray for righteous deeds, righteous thoughts, desires, words, actions in our lives, knowing that the upright shall behold his face. That’s what we want more than anything. One thing I’ve asked of the Lord, this I will seek, that I may dwell in his house, that I may see his face. Our souls are designed to be satisfied in seeing and knowing and loving God. And so, how might we see and know and love God through righteousness?
The upright shall behold his face. Now the challenge is, as soon as we realize that, we realize we are not always righteous, we are not like the Lord, we think unrighteous, unright thoughts, and have unrighteous desires and say unrighteous things and do unrighteous deeds. But isn’t this the beauty of the Gospel? That Jesus Christ, the righteous one, the Bible says, has come, and he has lived a life of no sin. He has lived a completely life and he has died on the cross to cover over all our sin, all our unrighteousness.
Psalm 11:7 Reminds Us to Live Righteously for God
And he has arisen from the dead so that everyone who trusts in him, God counts the righteousness of Jesus to them. To you and me, the Bible says, “God made him who had no sin to be sin for us in order that we might become the righteousness of God.” All glory be to your name for the Gospel, oh God, we praise you, oh Lord, for you are righteous. We praise you for your righteousness. We praise you. Everything you think and do is right.
We praise you that all your words are right. And we praise you for loving righteous deeds and hating evil. And so we confess, Oh God, in a fresh way before you today that we are unrighteous people, that everything we do is not right, God, that we have sent against you and your righteousness in so many ways. God, we confess afresh today our unrighteousness in and of ourselves. And at the same time, we praise you.
Jesus Paid the Price of Our Sin
We praise you, Jesus the righteous one, for taking our sin upon yourself in order that right now through faith in you, we might be counted the righteousness of God, that we might be counted righteous before you, justified before you. God, we praise you for this grace and his mercy that we certainly don’t deserve and the way it opens the door for us to behold your face for us to commune with you in prayer right now.
And so we pray based on this blood bought righteousness that you’ve given to us. Help us, help us to live fully in it. God, help our thoughts today to be righteous. Our desires today, make them righteous. Our words today, make them right and good and pleasing to you. And our deeds, our actions, right and good and pleasing to you. We want to behold your face like Psalm 11:7 says. We want to walk in your countenance. And we want to make this good news known to people around us, to people around the world.
Prayer For the Halba People in India
God, we pray today for the Halba in India, almost a million of them, 0.0% followers of Jesus. They don’t know how to remain righteous by the blood of Jesus. They’re in their sin on a road that leads to an eternity in suffering for sin, judgment present, and they’ve never even heard about the righteousness of Jesus Christ and how he has paid the price for the sins of all who trust in him. God, we pray for the spread of this Gospel of the Halba and India and to people right around us today as blood bought sinners who’ve been made righteous before you.
Help us to lead others to righteousness in you. We praise you, Oh God, for your righteousness, for the way you’ve counted the righteousness of Jesus to us, for the privilege of beholding your face in relationship with you. And we pray that you would make us more and more and more righteous in every facet of our lives and use us today to lead others to experience righteousness in you, Jesus. In your name, we pray. Amen.
David Platt serves as a pastor in metro Washington, D.C. He is the founder of Radical.
David received his Ph.D. from New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary and is the author of Don’t Hold Back, Radical, Follow Me, Counter Culture, Something Needs to Change, Before You Vote, as well as the multiple volumes of the Christ-Centered Exposition Commentary series.
Along with his wife and children, he lives in the Washington, D.C. metro area.
