Wow! 2023 starts our 3rd year of studying God’s Word together! Lord, you are amazing! Thank you for blessing us with a closer relationship with you, and allowing us to grow in our faith and commitment to you. We are nothing without you, Lord!
In this song of praise, Asaph prays to the Lord to punish His enemies until they learn the power of the Lord. Here’s the psalm in its entirety: “O God, don’t sit idly by, silent and inactive! Don’t you hear the tumult of your enemies? Don’t you see what your arrogant enemies are doing? They devise crafty schemes against your people, laying plans against your precious ones. “Come,” they say, “let us wipe out Israel as a nation. We will destroy the very memory of its existence.” This was their unanimous decision. They signed a treaty as allies against you – these Edomites and Ishmaelites, Moabites and Hagrites, Gebbalites, Ammonites, and Amalekites, and people from Philistia and Tyre. Assyria has joined them, too, and is allied with the descendants of Lot.
Do to them as you did to the Midianites or as you did to Sisera and Jabin at the Kishon River. They were destroyed at Endor, and their decaying corpse fertilized the soil. Let their mighty nobles die as Oreb and Zeeb did. Let all their princes die like Zebah and Zalmunna, for they said, “Let us seize for our own use these pasturelands of God!”
O my God, blow them away like whirling dust, like chaff before the wind! As a fire roars through a forest and as a flame sets mountains ablaze, chase them with your fierce storms; terrify them with your tempests. Utterly disgrace them until they submit to your name, O Lord. Let them be ashamed and terrified forever. Make them failures in everything they do, until they learn that you alone are called the Lord, that you alone are the Most High, supreme over all the earth. (Psalm 83) (Wow! That is powerful! Are we not prospering and succeeding in life because we are making other things lord over our lives? Have our plans failed because we place things, people, and activities above you?)
Lord, thank you for your Word today! Help us put you first in all things, recognizing that you alone are the Most High and that nothing or no one comes before you. Lord, we love you!
May the Lord bless you and protect you. May the Lord smile on you and be gracious to you. May the Lord show you his favor and give you his peace.” (Numbers 6:24-26)
….AND MAY WE ALL PRACTICE THIS WITH ONE ANOTHER.
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