“Give thanks to the Lord for he is good, for his steadfast love endures forever. Give thanks to the God of gods for his steadfast love endures forever. Give thanks to the Lord of Lords for his steadfast love endures forever.”
– Psalm 136:1-3
Part of me wants to just go on reading this whole Psalm. Psalm 136, it’s so great. And every single verse just ends with, “For his steadfast love endures forever. His steadfast love endures forever.” Like you get the point by the end of the Psalm, “The steadfast love of the Lord endures forever.” So yesterday in this podcast, we prayed for Scott’s son who had gone to be with the Lord.
O God, we pray Your enduring steadfast love over missionaries overseas who have family members dying of COVID-19 back home.
Psalm 136:1–3 Reminds Us that God’s Love Endures Forever
And I was reading this Psalm today and I immediately thought of someone else who has sent in a note, someone I know named Lisa. She and her husband I’ll speak very, very generally here. They live in a part of the world, sharing the gospel where yeah, if it was known what they were doing and who they’re trying to reach with the gospel, they would be in immediate danger and not just them, but the people around them. But they are faithfully sharing the gospel in one of the hardest places in the world. And I recently found out that Lisa’s parents, who are back here in the United States, both passed away from COVID-19.
Lisa and her husband are overseas in this difficult part of the world sharing the gospel. I just want to lead us to pray Psalm 136:1–3, over at Lisa and her husband. As well as for others who are separated from family right now and have had someone in their family die due to COVID-19.
This Verse Leads Us to Thank God
God we give thanks to you for you are good. And your steadfast love endures forever. We praise you for your love. It’s steadfast, it’s sure, it’s rock. To stand on when we’re thousands of miles away. I just think about Lisa and her husband from her parents when they went to be with you. God, we pray, we pray that Lisa and her husband would know your steadfast love in a fresh way, like even right now and tomorrow and the next day and the next day. God in fresh ways, like numerous, just every single day, especially during these days.
And I pray this, we pray this together for Lisa and her husband, because we know your steadfast love endures forever. Like it is new tomorrow and the next day and the next day. And it will be forever and ever and ever. So we give thanks to you, the God of gods. Little g, gods. You’re the only one, true God. Also, even his Lisa and her husband are giving their lives right now, making your glory known as the one, true God, amidst all kinds of false gods and denial of your truth as the one true God. Furthermore, God, we pray that you give Lisa and her husband’s fresh boldness and fruitfulness, faithfulness and fruitfulness.
Psalm 136:1–3 Leads Us to Pray For Others
God, we pray that you would help them in just fresh ways with fresh power from your spirit to proclaim your steadfast love to the people around them. That you would open eyes to believe, God that you would open hearts to receive your love. Open eyes to see the glory of Jesus as the demonstration of your steadfast love that you might be known as the God of Gods.
That you might receive thanks as the Lord, capital L, Lord of lowercase l, lords. There is no Lord other than you. There is no leader like you, there is no King other than you. So, God, please, please bless Lisa and her husband during these days. You’d comfort them, strengthen them, help them in every way with your steadfast love and that you would cause, oh God, you would cause your steadfast love to spread through them in new and exciting ways.
Now and the days to come and he would spend their lives, our lives together, making your steadfast love known around us. Even in the midst of mourning for those we love, missing those we love. I can’t even imagine what these days have been like for Lisa and her husband. May your love be all the more real and powerful. And may your love spread in all the more abundant ways among the nations. That more and more people might join in and say what Psalm 136:1–3 teaches us. In Jesus’ 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.
