Jerusalem has its day.

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“Arise, Jerusalem! Let your light shine for all to see. For the glory of the Lord rises to shine on you. Darkness as black as night covers all the nations of the earth, but the glory of the Lord rises and appears over you. All nations will come to your light; mighty kings will come to see your radiance.” ‭‭Isaiah‬ ‭60‬:‭1‬-‭3‬ ‭NLT‬‬

Jerusalem had, has and will have its day! God seems to really care about cities, especially Jerusalem. There are more than 300 cities mention in the Old Testament and hundreds more in the New Testament. When Robin and me had the privilege of going to Israel, I realized the importance of geography, specifically the cities where all the people of the Bible have lived. I believe that a third of our theology is found in the geography of the land of Israel. It’s hard to completely understand God’s entire story without having a grasp of the history of the region.

You actually can feel the city’s significance as you ascend into Jerusalem. Millions of people want to visit just to see, even touch a part of the history of these ancient places. Jerusalem continues to play an important role all the way through to the end of days. Revelation mentions the new Jerusalem in Rev 3:12, 21 and 2:10.

Isaiah prophetically predicted the true central, and extraordinarily eternal coming of the Messiah into this famous city. “The glory of the Lord rises and appears,” over Jerusalem and “all nations will come to your light.” The importance of cities has me thinking a lot about my own city of Los Angeles, City of the Angels. Maybe I am being too negative or critical, but LA hasn’t felt all that angelic for sometime. I am very thankful for the myriad of nonprofits and ministries that are helping the poor, the disenfranchised and the homeless, but it is tough work! Our streets of LA and the surrounding suburbs have thousands of mentally ill or desperately addicted men and women pandering and panhandling our streets everyday.

While driving down my own main street a woman crossed the street against the red light, she was not only completely naked, but she had a needle dangling from her arm as she zombie-walked to the other corner. It was crushingly sad to see her in such desperation. We need the light and love of Jesus to penetrate our dark streets of lawlessness, rage and hopelessness. My suburb city and Los Angeles need the angels of God just to bring the possibility of hope. Jerusalem will have its final days, but until then I pray that Los Angeles, New York, Portland, Austin, Detroit, Chicago and Washington DC will have the light of Christ shone down upon us.

Prayer

​Dad,
I see the brokenness within our cities and I pray. I pray that Satan would be banished from our city and that your mighty warrior angels would return to being hope, love, justice and righteousness. I want children to be able to walk their neighborhood in safety. So that single moms can shop without fear of street thugs. So that fathers would quit filling the bars and return home, spending what little money they make on the families instead of their cars, their beer and their drugs. Bring Your light into our dark streets Oh God! May your glory rise once again. Amen.

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