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Psalm 48:4-8 The city of God - Day 249

Good morning friends,

Some thoughts on the city of God and the cities of man.

Blessings,

Jeff

What is the difference between Jerusalem and every other great city?  It seems that everyone from a "great city" boasts about the city for its culture, sports, education,  architecture, etc. But only the Jews could boast that Jerusalem is the city of the Great King, the city of our God, the city that God will establish forever.  So the difference seems to be that other cities boast about what man has done while Jews boasted about the God who dwelled there.

The occasion of this psalm is some great deliverance of Jerusalem from some foreign armies.  The author rightly gives credit to God.  However, eventually, there was a transfer of credit from God to the Jews themselves.  They started to see themselves as a great people because of Jerusalem, not because of the God who took up residence there or because of their obedience to God's law. 

While the modern Israel is linked to the past, I don't think that modern Jerusalem is described by this psalm.  God no longer resides there as He did when the psalm was written. 

The Church is where God dwells today in the lives of individual believers.  It isn't the physical location or beauty of architecture, it is the testimony of changed lives.  The Church alone is build on the foundation of prophets and apostles with Christ himself as cornerstone.  The reason for the church is to glorify God, not ourselves.

  

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