As the living repository of God’s instructions to his people, and as the most profound and enduring love letter in history, the Bible is something to be read, treasured and pondered over. God’s word is given to His people for instruction, and each verse has its own meaning, both within the larger framework of the Bible and within the smaller framework of each person’s life. The Bible contains the purest treasures we can ever know here on earth. As the Bible explains, “The words of the Lord are pure words; as silver tried in a furnace on the earth, refined seven times.” Psalm 12:6.
The verses that have spoken to me lately are those that remind me of God’s peace, His love for me and His redemption. It has been a difficult year for me; health problems have drained my energy, sapped my spirit, and sent me on a unique roller coaster of emotions. These verses sustain me and remind me that nothing, NOTHING, separates me from God’s love and mercy.
Matthew 11: 28-30: Come to Me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble of heart, and you shall find rest for your souls. For My yoke is easy and my burden light.
Too many non-Christians (and perhaps, unfortunately, some Christians) have the mistaken notion that following Jesus requires us to follow a burdensome set of rules, a list of have-nots with God the Father standing overhead with a giant ruler, ready to smack us on the hand or head as soon as we transgress. Jesus’ words recorded in the passage from Matthew above remind me how inaccurate that idea remains. Jesus asks us to follow Him not to make our lives more difficult, but to help us find our truest, deepest selves, the person God designed us to be. Even more, Jesus assures that following His instruction, i.e., taking His yoke upon ourselves, is not burdensome, but freeing. He gives us rest and peace and joy.
Zephaniah 3:17 dispels the idea of God the Father, the giant ruler-smacker in the sky. The prophet said:
The Lord your God is with you; He is mighty to save. He will take great delight in you. He will quiet you with His love. He will rejoice over you with singing.
God is watching me, but only because He loves me. As hard as it is to comprehend, I am God’s child, and He loves me even more than I love my own daughter. He is not waiting in the sky, eager to smite me at every transgression, but rather, He delights in me, He comforts me and He rejoices over me. He will not condone sin when I stray from the path He wants me to follow, but He will always love me, and as a Christian, always welcome me back with rejoicing when I remember, as I too often forget, that I need Him with me to navigate this thing called life.
Psalm 3:3
Thou, oh Lord, art with me; my shield and the one who lifts my head.
In my quest to recover my health, I tried a particular allergy medication that sent me into deep depression within one week. At the very darkest point of that period, this verse sustained me. I knew, as I read over the verse weeping, that no matter how bad I felt at that moment, God was with me and He would carry me through. The promise in this verse gave me courage when I didn’t have it to step into the next minute, and then the next, and then before I knew it, we had figured out what the problem was, the medication was changed, and I was okay again. God did indeed “lift my head” and carry me through that very dark time.
Psalm 51:10-12
Create in me a clean heart, O God, and create a steadfast spirit within me. Do not cast me away from Thy presence and do not take Thy Holy Spirit from me. Restore to me the joy of Thy salvation and sustain me with a willing spirit.
King David in the Bible was certainly an interesting person, wasn’t he? The 51st psalm is attributed to him, and was written as a hymn of repentance following his …ummm… indiscretion with Bathsheba and his accompanying murder of Uriah the Hittite. Now, I have to be careful here not to judge myself better than him because I never had an affair with Bathsheba, nor have I ever murdered someone. The reason I have to be careful is that the basic definition of sin is to do acts that fall outside the will of God. While it is safe to say that David went well outside God’s will when he had the affair with Bathsheba and murdered Uriah, my own sins where I fall outside of God’s will are just as serious. These verses remind me, though, that when I do stray, once I repent, God forgives me sin, cleans my heart and lets me start fresh. That doesn’t mean the consequences of the act themselves are undone (you will note in the Bible passage that Uriah the Hittite stayed dead even after David was confronted with his actions) but God will show me step by step where to go from the point of repentance forward.
Jeremiah 29:11
I know the plans I have for you, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.
Finally, this verse from Jeremiah teaches me the importance of looking forward, and not back. No matter where I am returning to God from, He has already fashioned new plans and circumstances to set me back on the path He wants me to travel, plans that are good and full of hope. While I want to continually beat myself up over past mistakes, God is not wasting His time doing anything of the sort. He is too busy working to get me to the place He wants me to reach, a place of hope with a future.
You may or may not agree with my ideas on these Scriptures; that is perfectly okay with me. I am not a Bible scholar, just a layperson working her way through Scripture. The messages God sends me through his Word are not the messages necessarily meant for you. The important thing is that you begin reading so that the messages that are meant for you will reach you.