“The Lord has sworn and will not change his mind.”
– Psalm 110:4
That’s actually just the first part of Psalm 110:4, but I want us to soak that in particularly as we are praying each day for specific needs in each other’s lives in light of COVID-19. Let me encourage you to continue to send in specific prayer requests for you, your family, your church, community, city, country, as we’re receiving prayer requests just from all around the world. But radical.net/prayerrequest is where to submit those. But Psalm 110:4, is we’re praying for all of these different needs. Just stuck out to me as I was meditating on it, “The Lord has sworn and will not change his mind.” This verse just points to the unchanging character of God. The unchanging promises of God. The unchanging word of God and the unchanging purposes of God, in a world where so much is constantly changing.
Full Certainty that God Will Not Change
No one knows what the next week holds or the next couple of months hold. None of us knows what the future holds, but we do know this, like with rock solid certainty, that God will not change, that his character will be the same over the next week that it has been forever, that his promises will be just as reliable over the next month, and they have been for all of eternity. That his purposes, which he has been accomplishing from before any of us ever took a breath, he is still accomplishing.
When I think about just the changing circumstances all around us, I think about this one particular prayer request that Jill sent in. She said, “Please pray for Seneca, South Carolina, a community that has just experienced a horrible tornado over the last week, that devastated many family homes in the middle of this pandemic. Please pray for provision for these people, for salvation from Christ to spread for our communities protection from the coronavirus, even as we serve those in need.” I think about this community in South Carolina, I think about other communities in Louisiana and Tennessee that have experienced natural disaster like this, tornadoes specifically, on top of this pandemic. And when I read these stories, it just highlights, yes, the instability of this world.
Psalm 110:4 Builds a Strong Foundation on God
Obviously feeling that instability, amidst a pandemic around us, then you add on top of that, tornadoes, the havoc that they bring. I just want to lead us to pray specifically for Seneca, South Carolina and other communities like it. But all of us, as we pray to be reminded of the unchanging rock solid, consistent foundation we have in who God is, what God has said and the purposes that God is ultimately accomplishing.
Oh God, we look to you, the unchanging one. Everything around us is changing. We don’t know what’s going to happen tomorrow or the next day or the next day, but we praise you for your constancy, for your consistency in a world of constant change and uncertainty. God, we pray together right now for Seneca, South Carolina. We pray that this community would know your unchanging love. God, your unchanging mercy. Your unchanging grace. Your unchanging provision.
Psalm 110:4 Prays for God’s Provision
God, we pray for your provision for people who’ve lost their homes. We pray for ultimately your salvation in Christ to be made known and to spread, pray that you bless your church there, Jill and others, that they would be salt and light in the middle of tragedy around them. God, we pray for protection for those who are serving others in need, in the middle of these days. We pray for this in other parts of Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Tennessee, places that have experienced storms like this that have had such disastrous effect on different people’s lives in the middle of what was already such a difficult time.
God, we praise you. We praise you that no matter what happens tomorrow or the next day or the next day, you will be the same, that your love is always the same. That your mercy is always the same. That your perfections and your power and your wisdom are always constant. God, that your promises toward us, your word that we bank our lives on, is just as sure today as it was, 1000 years ago and will be just as sure tomorrow and the next day and the next day, as it has ever been.
Trusting in God’s Unchanging Purpose
And God we trust in your unchanging purposes that you are working all things together for the good of those who love you and have been called according to your purpose. God, we rest in your unchanging nature, perfections, promises, purposes. You are the rock upon whom we stand and we worship you. And we pray for your provision in all of our lives, particularly in those in Seneca, South Carolina, today. In Jesus name, we pray, the name of the unchanging savior, Lord and king of all, in his 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.
