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MEDITATION:

Written by N.T. Wright, a contemporary English theologian, New Testament scholar, author, and Anglican bishop. This is an excerpt from his book “The Case for the Psalms.”

The psalms celebrate, in almost embarrassingly vivid language, the belief that the creator of the universe has, for reasons best known to him, decided to take up residence on a small hill in the Judean uplands. The living God, the Psalms declare, has decided to make his own special home at the point where the fertile western escarpment meets the eastern wilderness. It is poised between garden and desert—almost as though God couldn’t quite make up his mind whether to settle firmly in a New Eden or to remain camped with his people in their wilderness wanderings. In David’s mind’s eye, at least, Jerusalem was designed to be seen as the place where, at last, Israel’s God would cease his wandering and dwell in one place…the psalms express, in a way that only those prepared to live at the intersection of the times will understand, the intersection of space: of God’s space with our space, of heaven with earth.

This is the point that Western modernity regards as so incomprehensible as to be laughable: the eternal creator coming to live at one point on the earth? Within classic philosophies, either the gods are far away in their own heaven and don’t get involved, as in Epicureanism, or they are omnipresent in a pantheistic world, as in Stoicism. Maybe, in ordinary ancient paganism, some gods or goddesses might decide to live or act in one place rather than another. But to suggest that the world’s sovereign creator might live in one place—well, it was not only philosophically ridiculous but also politically dangerous. That was part of the point. Once you say that the world’s creator lives in Jerusalem, you are going to go on to say—and the Psalms regularly do go on to say—that from Jerusalem he will rule all nations. Jerusalem is not the place where God’s people go to be in a safe retreat from the rest of the world. The living God establishes his throne in Zion so there his judgment will go out to all the nations. Zion is the place from which he will hear his people’s prayer and come to their rescue.

PRAYER:

Written by Debbie Przybylski, founder and director of Intercessors Arise International.

Father, I pray that You will visit us, and make Your presence known in my life and in my city. Give me faith to believe that You can change my city through prayer and through acts of love and compassion. Let Your Kingdom come on earth as it is in heaven. Help me to cultivate Your presence in my life. I choose to partner with You for transformation in my city. Help me to contend for my city in prayer with others. Remove the distractions in my life that keep me from Your presence. I repent of any pride or personal idols that have taken me away from having you in first place and being completely Yours. Take away any luke-warmness in my heart and set me on fire for You. Amen.