Read through the Bible in 2 years: Numbers 14

It is so convicting to read Numbers 14 and see how desperately Moses desires God’s Name to be glorified among the nations. Moses’s top priority isn’t his own comfort, nor the comfort of the Israelites. Rather Moses’s top priority is that God would not be profaned among the Egyptians. Moses feared that “if you kill this people as one man, then the nations who have heard your fame will say, ‘It is because the LORD was not able to bring this people into the land that he swore to give to them that he has killed them in the wilderness.'” (Numbers 14:15-16 ESV)

Moses isn’t the only one who put such a high priority on God’s name among the nations. Read Daniel’s prayers from Daniel 9,

“”O Lord, according to all your righteous acts, let your anger and your wrath turn away from your city Jerusalem, your holy hill, because for our sins, and for the iniquities of our fathers, Jerusalem and your people have become a byword among all who are around us.

Now therefore, O our God, listen to the prayer of your servant and to his pleas for mercy, and for your own sake, O Lord, make your face to shine upon your sanctuary, which is desolate. O my God, incline your ear and hear. Open your eyes and see our desolations, and the city that is called by your name. For we do not present our pleas before you because of our righteousness, but because of your great mercy.

O Lord, hear; O Lord, forgive. O Lord, pay attention and act.

Delay not, for your own sake, O my God, because your city and your people are called by your name.””

– Daniel 9:16-19 ESV

And how about the 79th psalm?

“(1) A Psalm of Asaph. O God, the nations have come into your inheritance; they have defiled your holy temple; they have laid Jerusalem in ruins.

(2) They have given the bodies of your servants to the birds of the heavens for food, the flesh of your faithful to the beasts of the earth.

(3) They have poured out their blood like water all around Jerusalem, and there was no one to bury them.

(4) We have become a taunt to our neighbors, mocked and derided by those around us.

(5) How long, O LORD? Will you be angry forever? Will your jealousy burn like fire?

(6) Pour out your anger on the nations that do not know you, and on the kingdoms that do not call upon your name!

(7) For they have devoured Jacob and laid waste his habitation.

(8) Do not remember against us our former iniquities; let your compassion come speedily to meet us, for we are brought very low.

(9) Help us, O God of our salvation, for the glory of your name; deliver us, and atone for our sins, for your name’s sake!

(10) Why should the nations say, “Where is their God?” Let the avenging of the outpoured blood of your servants be known among the nations before our eyes!

(11) Let the groans of the prisoners come before you; according to your great power, preserve those doomed to die!

(12) Return sevenfold into the lap of our neighbors the taunts with which they have taunted you, O Lord!

(13) But we your people, the sheep of your pasture, will give thanks to you forever; from generation to generation we will recount your praise.”

– Psalm 79:1-13 ESV

Heavenly Father, I echo the words of the psalmist and cry out, “Not to us, O LORD, not to us, but to your name give glory, for the sake of your steadfast love and your faithfulness! Why should the nations say, “Where is their God?”” (Psalm 115:1-2) Father, so many other nations see America as a Christian nation, so we ask for Your sake, for the sake of Your Holy Name, that You will save our land. Draw us back into a right relationship with You, Lord. Heal our land. Forgive us our sins. Give us a heart of repentance, that we would turn to You and turn away from our wicked ways. In the Name of Jesus Christ our Savior and King, Amen.