I was glad when they said to me,
“Let us go to the house of the Lord!”
Our feet have been standing
within your gates, O Jerusalem!
Jerusalem—built as a city
that is bound firmly together,
to which the tribes go up,
the tribes of the Lord,
as was decreed for Israel,
to give thanks to the name of the Lord.
There thrones for judgment were set,
the thrones of the house of David.
Pray for the peace of Jerusalem!
“May they be secure who love you!
Peace be within your walls
and security within your towers!”
For my brothers and companions’ sake
I will say, “Peace be within you!”
For the sake of the house of the Lord our God,
I will seek your good.
David wrote this Psalm as he made his way up to Mt. Zion. This journey made by so many of his people had been made a safe one because of what the Lord has done through him. Hence he exhorted the people of Israel to continue to worship the Lord and to pray for His peace upon the city. As long as the honor the Lord, He will bless them with peace. God is certainly worthy of praise and thanksgiving for all good things come from His hand.
Sadly, as we know from the Scriptures, the people of Israel abandoned the Lord. They fell into sin in times of peace. And we see the same thing in our own world. When there is prosperity and peace, people get complacent and fat. This is true in the Church as well as secular society. People forget that God has given them blessings and that with those blessings comes responsibility. We must honor God with thanksgiving, praise, and obedience. If we forget where our blessings come from we wind up thinking that what we do does not matter to God. And let us never forget that today around the world many of our Christian brothers are suffering and dying for the name of Jesus. We must not forget to pray for them and at the same time preach the gospel to those in our own part of the world that they may know the gospel of faith in Jesus.