Opossum Screed: To Know Him Is to Love Him

Those who love me, I will deliver; I will protect those who know my Name.

✙ Psalm 91:14

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Today's text equates loving God with knowing God's Name, and divine deliverance with divine protection. To remember this verse, I just think of the old pop song, To Know Him Is to Love Him. I don't know what was on the flip side of that record, but I doubt it was To Be Protected by Him Is to Be Delivered by Him.

What the psalmist is conveying here is the close and loving relationship between God and those who worship God. This worship involves trust and gratitude, and this happens when God's Name is on the tip of a faithful person's tongue—not to use it in vain as an exclamation or a curse, but to hold it close to the heart like a parent might remember a child's name.

Even a person of deep faith is imperfect. But knowing God's Name by heart is to relate to prayer, not as an occasional act, but as a way of life. Constant prayer means to live in a state of forgiveness, and empowers us more and more to approach God's throne with boldness. A small prayer—if prayed in faith—leads to a bigger prayer. And the more we pray, the more reason we have to live out our conversations with God.

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Beloved, if our hearts do not condemn us, we have boldness before God; and we receive from him whatever we ask.

✙ 1 John 3:21-22a

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Prayer after thinking about today's devotion:

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Almighty God, to you all hearts are open, all desires known, and from you no secrets are hidden. Cleanse the thoughts of our hearts by the inspiration of your Holy Spirit, that we may perfectly love you, and worthily magnify your holy name, through Christ our Lord.

✙ Collect for Purity, from a 10th century Latin prayer

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After your own thanksgivings & petitions, close with the Lord's Prayer.

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