12 Who can discern his errors? Forgive my hidden faults. 13 Keep your servant also from willful sins; may they not rule over me. Then will I be blameless, innocent of great transgression. 14 May the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be pleasing in your sight, O LORD, my Rock and my Redeemer.

In teaching his disciples, Jesus told them to pray for forgiveness and that they would not be led into temptation but delivered from evil. This is much the same thought as the Psalmist expresses here. When praying about his “hidden faults”, he is not talking about things he does and has hidden from those around him. He is talking about things that are wrong in his life but of which he is not aware. When we realize the perfection of God and his perfect revelation to us thru his word and then honestly look at ourselves, we know that we fall short of living up to his glory. In Romans 3:23, Paul calls this sin and declares that we all are guilty of this. Thanks be to God that this failure on our part continues to be cleansed by the blood of Jesus as we strive to live for him.

The other problem suggested here is when we give in to willful sins. This is when we know that something is wrong but because we want it or want to do it, we just go ahead and do it anyway. One problem with this is that we get away with it and then do it again. Soon, this sin begins to rule over us and our hearts become hardened. But how do we avoid this?

We avoid this by letting the words of our mouths and the meditations of our hearts always be pleasing to the Lord. Jesus said that our words and our actions come from what is in our hearts. It is for this reason that we need to guard our hearts from evil. We all think and meditate about something. Our minds are like the computer. What we put in is what we get out. If we feed our minds with music, reading and pictures that portray evil, wickedness, lusts and debauchery, we will find ourselves meditating on these things. The next step is we find ourselves making provision to engage in them. We then allow ourselves to be ruled by them. Paul says that is when sin becomes our master instead of allowing God’s righteousness to rule over us. He tells us instead to think on things that are true, noble, right, pure, lovely, admirable, excellent and praiseworthy and the God of peace will be with us.

O Lord, forgive my hidden faults and keep me from willful sins so they will not rule over me. Give me strength and wisdom to fill my mind with things that glorify you and not the trash and filth from Satan so that my words and the meditation of my heart will be pleasing to you. Help me today to resolve to be more like you in every way so you will be glorified. In Jesus name.

May God bless each of us as we live for him today in humble faith.