The Lord your God is in your midst, a mighty one who will save. He will rejoice over you with gladness, He will quiet you by His love. He will exult over you with loud singing.
– Zephaniah 3:17
Is that not amazing? This is God speaking to his people in the Old Testament. The verse right before this, “On that day, it shall be said in Jerusalem, fear not, let not your hands grow weak.” This is God just encouraging his people. And verse 17, “The Lord your God in your midst, a mighty one who will save, who rejoices over you with gladness.” What a picture, God rejoicing over his people with gladness. God will quiet you by his love. Oh, what a verse. God quieting his people with his love for them. And God exulting over you, like we were praying in Habakkuk 3 about us rejoicing in God, this is a picture of God rejoicing, exulting over us with loud singing. This is God, exulting over his people with singing, with joyful, loud singing.
Zephaniah 3:17 is a vivid picture of God’s love for us.
Oh, this verse just leads us to praise God for his love for us, and to remind us today of how much he loves us. Yes, we’re not the direct recipients of this prophecy in Zephaniah 3:17, but we know in Jesus, all these things are true for each of us who are in Jesus. And so I just want to encourage you today, God loves you so much. And that sounds so cliche, and so over familiar to us. But I pray that in a fresh way, you would feel this today, that God rejoices over his people. God rejoices over you with gladness, that God would quiet your heart today with his love. And you would realize that God is exulting over you with loud singing.
Oh God, I feel speechless in one way. Part of me just wants to sit here in silence and let this soak in. But I know for the purposes of this podcast, it’s helpful not just to be totally silent. But God, we praise you for this verse, and we praise you for this reality that you are in our midst, that you are with each one of us as your children right now. God, I pray that every person who’s praying this right now would sense this, would feel this, would believe this, that you are with them in their midst in them. The mighty one who saves, and that you rejoice over them with gladness.
Zephaniah 3:17 reminds us we are secure in God’s love.
I pray that you would give them a feeling sense of your joy, your glad joy over them. I pray that you would quiet them with your love in any way. Their hearts and minds are prone to restlessness right now, to anxiety, to stress. I pray that you would quiet them with your love, and they would hear in a spiritual way your loud, exultant singing over them. They would know that you take pleasure in them, not because of what they’ve done or how they’ve earned it, but because they are in Jesus, they are your children. That they would know how much you love them today, that they would abide in your love for them.
And God, I pray all these things over my own life, even as I pray this over every brother or sister in Christ who’s listening to this right now. And God, we do pray that as we abide in your love, you would help us to spread your love today, that others might know you in their midst in this way.
Prayer for the Kanaujia Dhobi People
God, we grieve over the Kanaujia Dhobi people of India, for half a million people who don’t know your love, who don’t know you, Jesus as the mighty one who will save them.
God, we pray that your love would not stop with us, but would spread through us to people around us and to peoples around the world. And God, we intercede today specifically for the Kanaujia Dhobi people of India. Please, oh God, would they come to know your love, your loud singing, and joy over them. God, we pray for that, all of this according to your Word in Zephaniah 3:17, which we love. In Jesus’ name, who makes all this possible, amen.
David Platt serves as a Lead Pastor for McLean Bible Church. He is also the Founder of Radical, an organization that makes Jesus known among the nations.
David received his B.A. from the University of Georgia and M.Div., Th.M., and Ph.D. from New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary. Some of his published works include Radical, Radical Together, Follow Me, Counter Culture, Something Needs to Change, Don’t Hold Back, and How to Read the Bible.
He lives in the Washington, D.C. metro area with his wife and children.
