Within your temple, O God, we meditate on your unfailing love.

 

Monday, November 20, 2023


Psalm 48

2 Kings 19:1-20

Matthew 24:32-51


Observances: Edmund, King of the East Angles, Martyr (d. 870); Priscilla Lydia Sellon, a Restorer of the Religious Life in the Church of England (d. 1876)


Within your temple, O God, we meditate on your unfailing love.


The fortress that protects our spiritual safety is unassailable. Forces of the enemy, all the kings of darkness, even once they banded together and attacked as one, were unable to bring down the walls. God’s city is so impregnable that those armies could not even launch the attack – once they see the citadel on the holy mountain, they realise the futility of their endeavour. Trembling in fear – a trembling as painful as childbirth – they flee the destruction of the Lord.


What is this fortress protecting? What could be so precious that God would build such a structure?


It is a house of prayer. This is the place we go to when we pray. It is the place where God hears the praise we give Him.


The fortress of God, the holy city on the holy mountain, is the place to which we ascend when we meditate on God’s unfailing love.


It is not the prayer that builds the defences. We do not construct a fortress of protection through our worship. God has already made the place of safety for us. Whenever we pray, praise or meditate on God, we go to that place of absolute safety.


You can spend as much time as you like in prayer and praise. Go on, walk about the ramparts. Discover for yourself the protection God gives you when you go to Him in prayer and praise. But don’t keep the good news to yourself – God is letting you inspect the defences so that you can then go and spread the word. God has built this fortress so that generations of people know that they can pray and praise Him in safety.


If that mission ever gets dangerous, then just run back behind the defences. Because it is within God’s temple that we meditate on His unfailing love.

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