# 29 2019. Dev. Psalm 67:4 Be Glad! Read all of Ps. 67 The purpose of these devotionals is to draw Gremar and I closer to God and grow spiritually by applying His Word to our daily living. All passages are taken from the NIV.
Ps. 67:4 “May the nations be glad and sing for joy, for you rule the peoples with equity and guide the nations of the earth.”
Ps. 67 is the third Psalm in a series of four prayers. This Psalm is a communal liturgical praise prayer including a benediction. Vs. 1,2 is the closing of worship that is the beginning of living for God and the beginning of God’s grace extended through a group of people.
Vs. 3-5 seems to be a Psalm within a Psalm bracketed with “May the peoples praise you, God; may all the peoples praise you.” Rejoicing is called for by God’s fairness and God’s guidance to the whole earth.
Vs. 6,7 call to mind God’s blessings and His continued blessing on his people, “so that the end of the earth will fear Him”. Fear in this case means to revere God; to honor, to praise and to worship.
For followers of Jesus, this Psalm brings to mind the centuries of God’s grace. God’s intention is to redeem His whole creation; reconciling His people back to Himself. In terms of making His ways “known on earth, your salvations among all nations” God began with Abraham and his offspring, “By them all families of the earth will be blessed”. In that sense God ends with the birth of Jesus, His life on earth, His death, and His resurrection. “It is finished”!
As a result, the lines of Israel are now blurred; all followers of Jesus are the the children of Abraham. In God’s view “Israel” is now not a nation but is what God intended it to be at the beginning, agents of God’s mission to the world: “After this I looked, and there before me was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people and language, standing before the throne and before the Lamb. They were wearing white robes and were holding palm branches in their hands. 10 And they cried out in a loud voice: ’Salvation belongs to our God, who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb” (Rev. 7:9,10).
I think you will join me in saying: I for one am thankful that God chose us to be agents of God’s mission to the world. We end with the blessing at the end of this Psalm: “God, our God, blesses us. May God bless us still, so that all the ends of the earth will fear him.” Praise be to our God!
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