In a world of inconsistency and instability it matters that we know God doesn’t just give us victory, joy and salvation as a one time event. Psalm 147, in a subtle way tells us God will equip us to live in that victory, joy and salvation long term. And because in the course of our Christian life there is a difference between having encounters with God and consistently walking with God, the psalmist tells us God will equip us to go beyond simply having a great “moment” in His presence, and instead help us walk in His blessings continually.

11 but the Lord takes pleasure in those who fear him, in those who hope in his steadfast love.12 Praise the Lord, O Jerusalem! Praise your God, O Zion! 13 For he strengthens the bars of your gates; he blesses your children within you. 14 He makes peace in your borders; he fills you with the finest of the wheat. –

Look at the image in verse 13, “He strengthens the bars of your gates”

Gates are picture of access and entry into a city and into our life. They represent the places we can receive both blessings and attacks. Our eyes, our ears, our minds, our emotions and our choices are a few examples of the gates that protect the “city of our souls.”

But the psalmist doesn’t just tell us there are gates, he says that God is the One who strengthens those gates. God is the One who takes the weak gates of our life and fortifies them so they become secure places that the enemy cannot breech!

Gates allow blessings to come into our life, but weak gates also allow enemies to break in a steal what’s been given to us. So God says there is a way for Him to strengthen the bars of the gates of our life so we don’t live from momentary blessing to momentary blessing, but we live with a consistent supply of God’s goodness and resources because our attackers’ strength is not equal to the security of God’s reinforcement!

• God doesn’t just give us victory, he makes us capable of living in that victory.
• God doesn’t just set us free, he teaches us how to live as free people.

God is not simply concerned with us having an encounter with Him, His goal for us is that we would become endlessly connected to him; and the difference is profound. Getting a word from God is wonderful, but if it doesn’t become a continual conversation then it meets a need for the moment but leaves us in need for sustainable nourishment.

The pursuit of our life has to be concerned with both the present and the future. Which means we need God to establish Gates in our life, entry points that are guarded by his truth and his wisdom so our enemies don’t have easy access to our hearts and minds. But, as the Psalmist says here, we also need the Lord to strengthen the bars of those gates. Putting up a gate is not enough, maintaining and fortifying that access point allows us to live in the kind of perpetual peace that our salvation is supposed to provide.

And there are three things in Psalm 147:11-12 we can do today to align us with God’s work of strengthening the bars of our gates:

1. Walk in the “fear” of the Lord. Are we turning our minds and our thoughts toward him, and engaging the scriptures often enough to see his greatness and to stand in all of his majesty?
2. Intentionally put your hope in His mercy. Are we embracing the kind of peace that only comes through humility as we celebrate his greatness and recognize our great need?
3. Live as people of praise. It’s interesting that the psalmist uses two locations in instructing the people to praise: Jerusalem and Zion.

• Jerusalem was the city of God, the city of David, it represented the centerpoint of the community of faith.
• Zion was in the same place as Jerusalem, but it was the mountain upon which Jerusalem was built. Zion was not a city, Zion was a foundation.
• And the charge for the body of Christ, is to praise because of the church and the people we have been given as a family of faith, as well as to praise because of the foundation that the church and community of faith is built upon, which is Christ Himself.

So, live in awe of God, place your hope in His mercy, and praise Him for what He’s building in your life as well as for what it’s built upon!

This is the kind of life that allows God to strengthen the “bars of our gates” – keeping our enemies away from what’s most valuable, preserving the generations coming after us, and bringing an abundance of peace and provision into our lives.