Pastor Fredo Ramos: As we pray the Psalms, we come now to Psalm 67. May God be merciful and bless us. What a way to start a prayer. May his face smile with favor on us. May your ways be known throughout the earth, your saving power among people everywhere.
May the nations praise you, oh god. Yes. May all the nations praise you. Let the whole world sing for joy because you govern the nations with justice and guide the people of the whole world. May the nations praise you, oh god.
Yes. May all the nations praise you. Then the earth will yield its harvest and God, our God, will richly bless us. Yes. God will bless us and people all over the world will fear him.
By way of reflection, man, who doesn't want to pray that God would bless us? Maybe as you start your day or as you come to a moment of prayer, today, you realize that, man, a blessing from God would be great right about now. And you notice that, refrain in verse one, again in verse three, and verse five. May the nations praise you. May all the nations praise you.
And that praising of God, again, is rooted in this idea of blessedness. But here's what I think is really important for our reflection, is that we are blessed in order to then be a channel of that blessing to other people. And so as you enter into a moment where you can be mindful of the ways that God has maybe even tangibly blessed you with things, maybe with a spiritual blessing, maybe with a financial blessing, be open to the possibilities, you go to him in prayer now, that he desires you to take what he's blessed you with and to hand that off to other people. The vision we have here in the Psalm is one in which the nations are praising God. The whole earth has come under his rule, under his love, and under his justice.
How does that happen? It happens through ordinary people like you and me doing ordinary things like taking our blessings and giving them away to others. And so, Jesus, we hear you now inviting us to respond with a prayer of obedience. As we ask you to bless us, god, would you allow us to respond to your blessing with obedience? And to the degree that we want to experience a rich life from you, a good life from you, would you help us to take that goodness and give it to a neighbor today?
Give it to a family member today. Give it to someone in need today because we long for the day where the world will worship you, where the nations will, in fact, praise you because they have experienced the blessing that is Jesus Christ and the salvation that comes from him. And so we open up our hands, we open up our hearts, and, God, we say, yes, bless us. But not just for our good, but for the good of others around us. We pray these things in Jesus' name.
Amen.