There are two readings for today.

SCRIPTURE: Psalm 149
OBSERVATION/APPLICATION:
May the praise of God be in their mouths and a double-edged sword in their hands, to inflict vengeance on the nations and punishment on the peoples, to bind their kings with fetters, their nobles with shackles of iron, to carry out the sentence written against them— this is the glory of all his faithful people. [Psalm 149:6-9]
At first glance, this sounds very disturbing… and it is.
But we need to think of this in it’s context: a world corrupted by violence and injustice and cruelty and abuse.
The psalmist is not envisioning random, cruel violence (which was practiced by the nations and kings at that time) but the execution of justice.
This is not to say there haven’t been God-followers who yielded the sword in wrong, cruel, malicious ways, there certainly have been many.
But this is not God’s heart, God’s will, God’s way.

Do not suppose that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword. [Matthew 10:34]
How does Jesus bring the sword?
By standing up for the truth, by confronting the powers that be and forcing them to see their guilt, their shame, their cruelty.
God’s will and purpose is to bring the wicked (those who refuse to repent) to justice, and we can be thankful for this, we can praise Him for it!
History shows how this leads to violence and death (ask Martin Luther King Jr.).

And yet Jesus takes us beyond the time and context of Psalm 149.
He could have come with a sword, with an army, and executed justice against the wicked (this is what the Jews were hoping for).
But He comes with a different sword, the sword of truth and grace and humility.
He does not fight with worldly weapons (which cannot create peace, only manage violence), but with spiritual God-powered weapons.
“Put your sword back in its place,” Jesus said to him, “for all who draw the sword will die by the sword. Do you think I cannot call on my Father, and he will at once put at my disposal more than twelve legions of angels? [Matthew 26:52-53]
The way of Jesus, Who reveals the heart of God, is not to address the evils of this world through violence, but to overcome evil with good (Romans 12:17-21].

We need to read Psalm 149 through Jesus, like Jesus, and follow Him in taking on the powers of sin, death and hell with the weapons of grace and love.
For though we live in the world, we do not wage war as the world does. The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds. We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ. [2 Corinthians 10:3-5]

PRAYER:
Lord, make me a valiant warrior like You, known for standing up to injustice and violence like You, with the weapons of grace, mercy, peace and love!