Abiding in the PsalmsSample

He Is For Everyone

The key to this psalm is in the first line, ‘Praise the Lord, all you nations’. He always has and always will be the God of and for everyone. How good is our God that He opens His arms to anyone who would receive Him! Regardless of ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, ability, disability or anything else. The first line could be translated today as ‘Praise the Lord, everyone!’ 

How do we know this? ‘For great is His love toward us’ (v2) ‘Us’ being a collective word for every nation, we know with certainty that from the beginning of time God has been in love with His creation and that He set in motion a plan to save not just the Jew but the Gentile as well. There are no limits to His love, there is no prerequisite for salvation, there is just a God in the business of bringing people into His kingdom. His promises extend to everyone and ‘his faithfulness endures forever’ (v2), so they’re not changing anytime soon!

As the church, we need to be people that reflect this. How many people in minority communities don’t feel comfortable in our buildings? How many times have we made someone feel unwelcome when we gather? Our God is the God for everyone. Which means that there’s no place for exclusion among us. There’s a call on our lives to do our best to make sure everyone, regardless of who they are or what they do, knows they are loved by God and salvation is open to them. We can’t restrict God to people who look, sound, talk or act like us. We must make Him known among everyone!

Questions

What are some of God’s promises to everyone?

What have you done in the past that has excluded people from the gospel?

What are three things you can do in the future to include people?

Pray

Dear God, thank you for everything you've done to bring people into your kingdom. Thank you for sending Jesus to die for humanity’s sins. Please help me spread the gospel to the people that seem least likely to accept it. Amen.