We have thought on Your steadfast love, oh God, in the midst of Your temple. As Your name, oh God, so Your praise reaches to the ends of the earth.
– Psalm 48:9–10
Ah, I love these two verses and the way they fit together.
Psalm 48:9–10 Is About Dwelling in God’s Temple
So just, all right, verse 9, “We have thought on Your steadfast love, oh God, in the midst of Your temple.” The whole Psalm is about being in the temple, in the presence of God where His glory dwells and verse 9 says, “When we’re in Your temple, in the middle of it, we think about Your steadfast love, oh God.” Isn’t that a good thing to do today, right now? Just think about His steadfast love, God’s steadfast love for you. Just meditate on it, how much He loves you, how much He delights in you, all the ways He has shown and is showing even right now His love for you and just think about Paul’s prayer in Ephesians 3, that you would know the height and width and breadth and depth of God’s love for you in Jesus. Think about John 15.
“Abide in My love. As the Father has loved Me, so I have loved you. Remain in My love.” Spend time during Your day just stopping and meditating on God’s love for you and then, so that’s verse 9. Verse 10 says, “As Your name, oh God, so Your praise reaches to the ends of the earth,” and so this picture of the God who loves sinners, who’s worthy of praise to the ends of the earth. In other words, His love is not just for you or for me. His love is for all the peoples of the world to the ends of the earth. He loves them all.
Psalm 48:9–10 Is About God’s Love for His People
God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son, that whoever in the world, whoever believes in Him will not perish, but have everlasting life, will spend eternity thinking about, meditating on, experiencing God’s steadfast love. So just think about both directions that leads us to pray. One, God, we praise You for Your love for us. God, I praise You for Your love for me.
God, I pray that every single person who’s listening to this right now would feel in a fresh way in this moment through Your word, Your love for them. You see them. Lord, you know them. You know all that their walking through. God, you care for them. You are with them. You’re for them. They’re Your children. All who have trusted in Jesus are a part of Your family, Your household. You are their father and You love them with a steadfast, not a changing love, a never changing love, perfect love, personal love. God, help us to remain in Your love.
I pray Ephesians 3 over every single person listening to this right now, that they would know the height and width and depth and breadth of Your love. They would know and comprehend this love that surpasses knowledge and God, as we meditate on Your love, we pray that Your love would spread through us to the ends of the earth, so that all the peoples of the world might praise You for Your love.
Praying for the Bhabra People
God, we pray this for the Bhabra people of India, 37,000 of them living in a northwestern states of Punjab and Rajasthan.
God, we pray for the spread of Your love to the Bhabra people of India that they might think about, meditate on Your steadfast love and Jesus, God, we want that for all the peoples of the world. We pray that You would help us to spread Your love to people around us today, that You would help us to be a picture of Your love for them to speak the good news of John 3:16 to them.
God, we want to live at the intersection of Psalm 48:9–10 every day, meditating on Your steadfast love for us and living to spread Your steadfast love to the ends of the earth. In Jesus name, we pray according to Psalm 48:9–10. 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.
