Daily Manna · Day 260 · September 17
Angels Charged Over You
“For he shall give his angels charge over thee, to keep thee in all thy ways.”
There is a phrase in this verse that the devil left out when he quoted it.
The psalm promises a guard and says exactly where the guard is posted: "to keep thee in all thy ways." Your ways are the roads you actually have to walk in everyday life. This verse is quoted in two of the Gospels, Matthew and Luke, and both times it is the tempter quoting it to Jesus after setting Him on a pinnacle of the temple. Both times those words go missing. In Luke the quotation stops at "to keep thee." In Matthew the keeping is gone altogether. Jesus does not argue over what the verse means. He answers with another scripture: "Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God."
The promise is older and wider than that one psalm. At Bethel, Jacob was running from home and sleeping with a stone for his pillow when he dreamed of "the angels of God ascending and descending" on a ladder. At Dothan, Elisha's servant saw only the enemy army around the city. Then Elisha prayed, and the servant saw that "the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire." Hebrews says it plainly: "Are they not all ministering spirits, sent forth to minister for them who shall be heirs of salvation?" The angels are sent out on assignment for ordinary believers, the people who will inherit salvation.
There is an ordinary road in front of you today, and God has already posted His guard on it. The errand you have been putting off lies on that road. You can walk it in peace, because you are kept in all your ways.
Daily Manna runs on a two-year cycle. The year two reading for day 260 is I Cannot Come Down (Nehemiah 6:3).