During 2025, Peachtree Church is focusing on the Book of Psalms with a series called Dwell, through which we seek to deepen our conversation with God and open ourselves to hearing his response. The practice of praying three times each day will unite the voices of our hearts and souls as we seek the day when we will see the full realization of the Kingdom of God, promised in Revelation 21:3: “…Look! God’s dwelling place is now among the people, and he will dwell with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God.”
We will email devotionals twice weekly with Monday’s providing an overview of the Psalm as a whole, and Wednesday’s focused on that week’s Daily Dwell.
Love and faithfulness meet together;
Psalm 85:10
righteousness and peace kiss each other.
Devotional
There’s something beautiful to me in the connection between love and faithfulness and between righteousness and peace. Most of us live in a world of juxtaposition, a space where rather than seeing two connected items we deal with opposing viewpoints offered against each other.
The challenge for many of us in reading these words is that we tend to see them as asking the dreaded “compare and contrast” essay questions that we suffered through as students, or else we simply seek to make connection into something harder than it is meant to be. In this Psalm, loving God leads to faith in Him; having faith in the Almighty leads us to loving Him. Righteousness before the Lord draws us into His peace, and seeking to live at peace before Him helps us to be righteous before our Creator.
An interplay exists, not due to our own efforts, but because of the call of God upon each of our lives. His aim is for us to grow in righteousness, to become a people who do not simply follow the rules and regulations that we have been given, but to be a people who know God and who seek to follow Him. The difference in those two perspectives is an important one. We are not to fall into a legalistic viewpoint—that of the rule-follower—that leads not to righteousness but to self-righteousness.
For Reflection
- What is the connection that you see between love and faith?
- How do you see yourself growing in righteousness?
Prayer
Lord God, help us to grow in righteousness. Help us to see the love that you so richly shower down upon the world. Let us be remade into instruments of your peace that we might grow into the people who you have called us to be. In Jesus’ name we pray; amen.
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Devotionals