Two
days ago, I reached verse 18 of this penitential psalm, reading,
“May it please You to prosper Zion,
to build up the walls of Jerusalem.”
The
Holy Spirit revealed to me how important a role confession played in leading
the penitent David to intercede on behalf of Jerusalem and Zion. He also opened
my eyes to see the role intercession played in the earthly ministry of Christ
who alone is the perfect penitent. He further taught me how I, too, am called
to receive the gracious righteousness of Christ as I intercede on behalf of my
city and my nation.
Yesterday,
the Spirit of the living God drew me to ponder the condition and content of
David's intercession in this verse—God’s good and perfect pleasure.
What
constitutes God’s good and perfect pleasure?
The
Bible teaches us that the Father is pleased in His Son (Mt 3:17). In fact, through
the ministry of the apostle Paul, the Holy Spirit teaches us that the Father
“was pleased to have all His fullness dwell in [Christ], and through Him to reconcile
to Himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making
peace through His blood, shed on the cross” (Col 1:19-20, NIV).
In
other words, the Holy Spirit imparts that, regardless of how things look on
earth, the Father is only well pleased in Jesus, the Son of God, the Son of
Man. He is pleased in us only when we accept His invitation to hide in Christ,
to glory in the Son’s finished work on the cross, to fall into the grace and
knowledge of Immanuel. The Father called David a man after His own heart
because David humbled himself before the mercy seat of the Father and requested
forgiveness.
Do
I want God’s good and perfect pleasure in my life today?
Do
you desire to please the Father today?
Then,
receive the precious faith God has deposited in you to believe in His
promise—Christ Jesus.
Then,
receive the precious faith Christ has deposited in you to believe in His
promise—the Holy Spirit.
Today,
on this forty-fourth morning of my 50 days of waiting, would you join me in
meditating upon the manifestation of God’s good and perfect pleasure?
According
to this verse, David’s intercession suggests that the Father would be pleased
in the prosperity of Zion and the rebuilding of the walls of Jerusalem. Old
Testament writings confirm David’s hunch quite vividly. In fact, over two
millennia ago, the Israelites returned from their Babylonian captivity to find
Jerusalem lying in ruins:
shabby
homes
decaying
fields
ramshackle
walls
rundown
buildings
Evidently, the
restoration of Jerusalem and Zion would indicate that the temple needed to be
rebuilt, homes needed to be made sturdy, fields needed to be verdant again, and
the wall of the city needed to be re-erected.
The Father used
Ezra to help rebuild the temple.
The Lord
employed Nehemiah to reconstruct the wall.
The restoration
was completed “in fifty-two days” and was so outstanding that “when all the
surrounding nations had seen it, they were deeply impressed and acknowledged
that this work had been accomplished by the power of our God” (Neh 6:15-16).
52 days.
What is so
significant about that number?
Why would the
Holy Spirit inspire the inclusion of this detail in Nehemiah’s account?
Let us look at
this together, you and I.
Pentecost Sunday
(June 8) is the commemoration of the coming of the Holy Spirit to rest upon
individual believers. Pentecost comes exactly 50 days after Easter. Yet, on
Good Friday, 52 days before the first Pentecost, Jesus rendered a definitive pronouncement
on the cross, “It is finished” (Jn 19:30, NIV).
The restoration
was complete.
The
reconstruction was finished.
The temple of
the Holy Spirit was perfected in the body of Christ.
The wall of fire
was rebuilt and established in the benevolent grace of the Father.
Yes, grace.
Grace is the
seed that prospers the true Zion.
Grace is the
fiery wall that protects the new Jerusalem.
Grace is the
favor that surrounds the righteous in Christ as with a shield.
Yes, it pleases
the Father to prosper Zion and to build up the walls of Jerusalem . . .
in Christ.
in Christ alone.
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