Praise the LORD. Sing to the LORD a new song, his praise in the assembly of the saints. 2 Let Israel rejoice in their Maker; let the people of Zion be glad in their King. 3 Let them praise his name with dancing and make music to him with tambourine and harp. 4 For the LORD takes delight in his people; he crowns the humble with salvation. 5 Let the saints rejoice in this honor and sing for joy on their beds. 6 May the praise of God be in their mouths and a double-edged sword in their hands, 7 to inflict vengeance on the nations and punishment on the peoples, 8 to bind their kings with fetters, their nobles with shackles of iron, 9 to carry out the sentence written against them. This is the glory of all his saints. Praise the LORD.

God chose Israel to be his special people. He made a promise to Abraham that he would make a great nation of his descendants and bless them. In fact, he said that from his one son, Isaac, there would be a nation so numerous that they would be like the sands of the sea or the stars in the sky. God carried out his promise. There were seventy who went down into Egypt to escape the famine and about 300 years later emerged as a nation of over a million people. God had indeed kept his promise.

God has promised spiritual Israel (those who are his children thru Jesus – his church) that he will be with us and bless us today. Just as he promised to defeat the physical national enemies of Israel of old, so he has promised to defeat our spiritual enemies. In fact, the greatest enemies we must face have already been defeated by Jesus in his death and his resurrection. Paul tells us that the enemy is Satan and his strongest weapon is sin which brings death. Yet, Jesus has destroyed the power of sin by giving his perfect life on the cross. He has destroyed the power of death by his resurrection.

The most difficult task before us is to humbly trust in Jesus as our savior. To do this we must rid ourselves of ourselves. We must die to sin and to the lusts it presents. We must submit to the will of God for our lives so much so that we make his will our own. We then joyfully obey him in all that he has given us. He turns our hearts of stone into wells of compassion. We rid ourselves of all bitterness, which stems from selfishness and fill our hearts with love and kindness. We allow the Spirit to control all we are.

Lord God, I praise you for your great love shown to me while I was even an enemy to you. I thank you for your compassion for my helpless condition and your grace shown in the sacrifice of your Son on my behalf. Please help me to joyfully submit to your will, to love and trust you with all my heart, my soul and my mind. Forgive me when I fail. I pray in Jesus’ name.

May God bless each of us as we live for him today.