READ Psalm 124. 1 If the LORD had not been on our side—let Israel say— 2 if the LORD had not been on our side when people attacked us, 3 they would have swallowed us alive when their anger flared against us; 4 the flood would have engulfed us, the torrent would have swept over us, 5 the raging waters would have swept us away. 6 Praise be to the LORD, who has not let us be torn by their teeth. 7 We have escaped like a bird from the fowler’s snare; the snare has been broken, and we have escaped. 8 Our help is in the name of the LORD, the Maker of heaven and earth.
COVENANT. Four times (verses 1, 2, 6, and 8) God is called the LORD, the God who enters into a covenant with us by grace. This unfamiliar word means his love is “locked on to us” in unending commitment. Thus he is always for us (verses 1–2). But the psalmist could not see what we see. God is ever on our side, because in Christ our sins can’t bring us into condemnation (Romans 8:1, 34–35). So not “trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword . . . will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 8:35, 39). Since the maker of heaven and earth is (through Christ) our help, we will not fear (verse 8). What could be against us (Romans 8:31)?
Prayer: Lord, you are a covenant-keeping God. Your Son vowed to save us, and not even hell itself, coming down on him with its full force, could stop him from keeping his promise. Now make me like him. “Take my will, and make it Thine; it shall be no longer mine. Take myself, and I will be, ever, only, all for Thee.”135 Amen.