Psalm 101:4

⁴ A perverse heart shall depart from me;
I will not know wickedness.

How do you change?  Maybe there is something within you that you just can’t seem to shake.  You don’t like it and you want to be different.  You hate it.  You pray and pray for God to take it from you, but it seems this perverse heart, this pull away from God, remains.  Maybe it’s not you, but someone you know and they just can’t get it “out of their system”.  Are we/they doomed? 

“The Lord detests those whose hearts are perverse, but He delights in those whose ways are blameless.” – Proverbs 11:20

Here, we are told “a perverse heart SHALL depart from me”.  This is done by CHOOSING to take some actions to increase your chances of having the proper heart condition you know you should have. 

1. “I will sing … to you, O Lord.”  Sing of God’s greatness and particularly of His great mercy towards you, that is, His not giving you what you deserve for your evil, but showing His great love for you.  No matter how imperfect we are, God is not ashamed of us, but loves us with an everlasting love calling us to Himself.  So sing out of a grateful heart.
2. “I will behave wisely.”  The only wise thing any of us can truly do is follow the instructions of God.  To behave wisely we follow His Word.  We acknowledge that He is the only authority and His Words are the only words that are worthy to be followed.  We trust and obey.
3. “I will set nothing wicked before my eyes.”  I am grateful and thankful for God’s everlasting mercy and I sing to Him praising Him for His love extended towards me, “an undeserving sinner”.  I listen to His Word and I obey it.  I seek to follow it with all my intentions.  And now, I decide to put nothing in front of me that A.) Might cause me to stop praising Him or appreciating His great mercies or B.) Might cause me to stop following His Word and being wise.  “My son, if sinners entice you, DO NOT CONSENT. … My son, do not walk in the way with them, keep your foot from their path.” – Proverbs 1:10,15

Rick Warren likes to comment that the Word of God often has premises followed by promises.  Here, the premise is laid out in verses 1-3 and the promise starts in verse 4.  If we remain reminded of God’s great mercies and sing praises of them, listen to His Word and obey it, and are vigilant to have nothing wicked before us, then “a perverse heart shall depart me” and “I will not know wickedness”. 

“When wisdom enters your heart, and knowledge is pleasant to your soul,

Discretion will preserve you; understanding will keep you,

To deliver you from the way of evil, from the man who speaks perverse things,

From those who leave the paths of uprightness to walk in the ways of darkness;

Who rejoice in doing evil, and delight in the perversity of the wicked” - Proverbs 2:10-14

Not only do I continually want for there to be no perverse, no inward reluctance or disposition to oppose God’s inward call upon me, but I do not want to know evil.  I want that anchor in me that pulls me towards the bottom to be cut loose and I never want to know the suffocation from the deep.  Here we are given a recipe. 

Do you wish to be well?  Do you want to be complete throughout?  Once you answer this question, then you can answer the next one.  We have to choose who is the authority in our life and we have to choose whom to believe and in whom to have faith.  Do we choose ourselves?  Or do we choose the one true living God?