We have thought on your steadfast love, O God, in the midst of your temple.
– Psalm 48:9
What a great verse. The Psalmist saying, “I’ve come into your presence and I have just spent time thinking about your steadfast love, your faithfulness, your mercy, your kindness, your generosity, your loyalty, your love for me.” And as I read this, I just think about the importance of each of us doing this in our relationships with God to pause and let Psalm 46 be still, just sit in the presence of God and meditate on how much he loves you.
Psalm 48:9 calls us to meditate on God’s love.
Just think about all the ways he has shown his steadfast love for you and all of his to show his steadfast love for you, and not just the past or the future, but in the present. Just to think about and thank God for praise God for the evidence of his steadfast love in your life right now. This is so good to meditate on and ways that lead us to trust in God’s love for us. I think about Jesus’ command to us as his followers in John 15 to abide in his love, and remain in his love.
The other day I told my kids, that one of the things I pray for them most is that they would believe God’s love for them. I think so much that spiritual warfare is a battle to believe that God loves us. You think about even the first sin in the world, the first temptation was the serpent saying to Eve, “God doesn’t want what’s best for you. God’s keeping that which is good from you.” The serpent was tempting Eve to doubt, to question God’s love for her and for Adam.
Psalm 48:9 calls us to remind our souls of God’s faithfulness toward us.
So how important is it then for you and me daily to meditate on, trust in, enjoy, remember, and just soak in God’s love for us in ways that will help us to fight temptation? It will remind us God always wants what is good for us, help us to surrender to him and every facet of our lives, and want to obey him. This is why John 15 goes on to say, “Not just abide in my love, abide in my word and obey my commands,” out of the overflow of love relationship with God. So we pray, God made this kind of love relationship with you mark our lives, may meditation on and trust in and enjoyment of your love for us be our daily experience. May it be a reality for us today.
Now, amidst everything else going on in our lives even right now, we just stop and say, personally, thank you for all the ways you have loved, are loving, and promise to love us.
This verse challenges us to be still before the Lord and remember his grace.
Now, I just would pause on our praying and just say at the end of this prayer, if you have time, just spend time doing this, meditating on and reminding yourself of all the ways God has loved, is loving, and promises to love you. God, we praise you that there are so many evidences of your love in our lives.
God help us to see them, especially when we’re going through hard days and we’re seeing struggles in our lives and have questions even about what you’re doing or why this is happening, God, help us underneath it all to still see your love for us. Help us to meditate on your steadfast love and then, oh God, to spread it, to show it to others, to show this kind of love that you’ve shown us to others around us in your church. And God, help us to show this love to others around us in the world.
Help us to lead people to your love in Jesus today.
Prayer for the Rif Berbers
And God, we pray specifically for Rif Berbers in Morocco and other countries throughout North Africa. This people group of 2 million people much like the Berbers as a whole, are almost all unreached by your love, by the good news of your grace in Jesus. God, we pray that Rif Berbers would be reached with the good news of your steadfast love, that they might think about and meditate on and trust and enjoy your love in Jesus now and forever. God, we don’t want to keep this love to ourselves. Please use our lives however you will to spread your love in the world as we meditate on your love every day, including now. In Jesus’ name, we pray, amen.
Again, spend some time if you are able in the next just few minutes and meditate on, and think on how God has shown his steadfast love to you in the past specific ways. Just thank him, praise him. Meditate on his steadfast love in the past and now in the present. How do you see his love at work in your life? And then just think about all of his promises to show steadfast love for you in the future and praise him and thank him for all those promises. Meditate on his steadfast love for you in specific ways in his presence.
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.
