The 15th Psalm addresses a question that we’ve all asked at some point in our lives. David says, ‘Lord, who may dwell in your sacred tent?’ To put it another way, what kind of person can have intimate fellowship with God? What does it take? 

The response is 10 moral qualities. This list includes “the one whose walk is blameless,” “whose tongue utters no slander” and “who keeps an oath even when it hurts.” Some scholars observe that this list may mirror the 10 commandments. Walter Brueggemann goes as far as to call it a torah Psalm. 

And yet, these 10 responses should be a bit unsettling for us. Living up to actions like walking blamelessly is difficult and seemingly unattainable. Yet we read what Jesus would have read here. The difference is we know that Jesus fulfilled them perfectly. He had intimate fellowship with God. 

When we entrust our lives to him, not only do we claim the promise that ‘whoever does these things will not be shaken’ but we actually start to do some of these things. The more we follow Jesus, the more our lives are marked by Christ-like integrity.