Help us, oh God of our salvation, for the glory of your name. Deliver us and atone for our sins, for your name’s sake.
– Psalm 79:9
This verse is a good reminder to ultimately center all of our prayers around God, not around ourselves. Yes, part of praying is asking God for things for us or for things for others… For God’s help and God’s provision in different ways. But listen to the language of Psalm 79:9. “Help us, oh God of our salvation, for the glory of your name. God, help us for your glory. Deliver us and atone for our sins. Forgive us of our sins.” And that’s something we need God to do.
Psalm 79:9 reminds us that ultimately God does everything for His glory.
But listen to the last part of verse nine. “For your name’s sake.” These verses are a reminder that ultimately everything God does is for his own glory. And we’ve talked about this at different points and different episodes as we’ve seen this theme that’s cover to cover in Scripture. If that rubs us wrong that God lives to exalt himself, while I would just ask a follow-up question, who else would you rather him exalt, you or me or this or that?
At any point, God were to exalt anyone or anything else. He would no longer be the God who is worthy of all glory. It’s what it means for him to be God. Yet the beauty of the Bible is how God chooses to exalt himself. He exalts himself by saving sinners like you and me from our sin by sending his son as a sacrifice on the cross for our sins, to atone for our sins. Yes, God saves us for his own glory. God leads us, provides for us, directs us, helps us, saves us for our good and ultimately his glory.
And so as you and I pray for all kinds of things in our lives and others’ lives, let’s make sure to make the connection with how Jesus taught us to pray. Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your Name for your Name’s sake. So let’s pray accordingly. Oh God, our Father in heaven, our Savior, our Lord, our King, hallowed be your Name in all the earth and hallowed be your Name in our lives. Show the greatness of your Name. Show your glory. We pray in the world and in, in through our lives.
Psalm 79:9 challenges us to seek God’s glory above everything else.
God, we want this more than anything else… For you to be glorified. because we know that you are worthy of all glory., you are God. You are Lord. You are King… Jehovah-Jireh, our Provider. You are our Shepherd. You are all that your Name represents, and we want your Name to be exalted in our lives in all these ways and in the world among all the peoples.
So help us, we pray today in every way we need. Oh God, just as you promise to provide for everything we need, you are Jehovah-Jireh. So for the glory of your Name as our Provider, help us today. God, deliver us just as you promise to deliver us. You are our Savior. That is your Name. We pray for your deliverance in our lives for your glory.
We pray that you would forgive us of our sins for your glory as the merciful, gracious, compassionate God’s slow to anger and rich in love who cleanses us from all unrighteousness. For your Name’s sake, forgive us of our sins. God, help us to live and pray and think and desire and work all day long today by your grace in our lives for your glory through our lives. And God, we pray that, in light of Matthew 5, you’d help us to live today in a way that others might glorify your Name, others around us and others around the world.
Prayer for the Jalbani Baloch People
God, we pray for all these people groups who don’t know the glory of your name, Jesus, specifically today for the Jalbani Baloch people. God please, for this group of 245,000 people who have little to no followers of Jesus among them that don’t know the glory of the name of Jesus and their lives and don’t know you as their Savior and the one who alone can atone for their sins, God, we pray that the Jalbani Baloch people would be reached with the truth and the grace and the love and the glory that are found in the name of Jesus. We pray Psalm 79:9, “Help us, oh God of our salvation, in every way we need today for the glory of your name. Deliver us and atone for our sins for your name’s sake.” 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.
