Ps 85

Devotion 1 of 1: Ps 85

This is a psalm about not stopping part-way but completing God’s restoration. It says in v.1 that “You (God) have brought back the captivity of Jacob.” But the restoration is not yet complete, as v.4 says, “Restore us, O God of our salvation, and cause Your anger toward us to cease.” Finally, v.8-13 show the restoration completed, as v.9b says, “…that glory may dwell in our land.”
Let’s look at an application of this psalm:
OT Israel: We see God restored the Jews from the Babylonian Captivity to Judah in 538 BC. But the restoration was incomplete because Judah in Jesus’ time was not an independent kingdom but one under Roman rule.
This restoration will be fulfilled during the Millennium when Jerusalem will be established as the capital of the world, and Jesus will rule from there, as Jer 3:17 prophesies: “At that time Jerusalem shall be called the throne of the Lord, and all nations shall gather to it, to the presence of the Lord in Jerusalem…”
Let’s not be content to stop part-way in the church’s restoration but pray for its completion! Likewise, let’s pray for Israel to believe in Jesus as Messiah and Savior to complete their restoration!

1 JN 5: Free sharing!
V.3 says, “For this is the love of God, that we keep His commandments. And His commandments are not burdensome.” There are hundreds of commandments in the Bible, which make it very difficult to remember. Thankfully, Jesus summarized all the commandments into two: Love God and Love your neighbor as yourself (Luke 10:27).
But sometimes we may feel like keeping God’s commandments is burdensome. We may feel tired or lazy or we just want to take a one-week break from keeping them!
Why do we feel like that? V.3 tells us that it’s because we’ve forgotten the love of God! If we remember His love, what Jesus went through for us at Calvary to remove our sins and give us eternal life, keeping His commandments will not be burdensome at all!
I heard the story of a daughter who found it difficult to clean her room. Her mother tried to get her to do it, but she found it too burdensome and would always put it off. But one Saturday, a young man she had a crush on at work suddenly called to say the boss asked him to deliver some work papers to her house, and he could come by in 30 minutes!
As soon as she put the phone down, she ran to her room and worked quickly to clean it up in 15 min.! What was a burden before became no problem now! Then she spent the next 15 min. to make herself look at pretty as possible!
What motivated her to clean her room? It was love for that young man! Let’s keep Jesus as that young man in our lives so that His commandments will never become a burden to us!