Blessed is the man who's: "delight is in the law of the Lord, And in His law he meditates day and night. He shall be like a tree Planted by the rivers of water, That brings forth its fruit in its season, Whose leaf also shall not wither; And whatever he does shall prosper"
(Psalm 1:2-3; NKJV).
The Word of God is truth (John 8:31-32) and life (John 6:63).The Word is powerful (Hebr 4:12) and works in us (1 Thess 2:13) to convict us of sin (Psalm 119:11), cleanse us of sin (John 15:3), open the door for salvation (Rom 1:16) and change us to be more like Jesus each day (2 Cor 3:18).
God's Word always achieves its purpose (Isaiah 55:11), is a joy and delight to the heart (Jer 15:16), heals (Psalm 107:20), never passes away (Matt 24:35) and brings success and prosperity (Joshua 1:8). We should immerse ourselves in His inspired word, our Bible (Col 3:16; Joshua 1:8; 2 Tim 3:16-17), teach it and live it (Matt 4:4)! The results are wonderful.
I love psalm 8, it extols the glory of God, especially in creation. When I was reading it the other day verse 2 caught my attention:
“Out of the mouth of babes and nursing infants You have ordained strength, because of Your enemies, that you may silence the enemy and the
avenger.”
Then I remembered that Jesus quoted this verse in Matt 21:16, except He changed one of the words; He used “praise” instead of “strength”. So, according to what Jesus said, if we praise God with childlike praise our enemies will be silenced. In other words when we are going through trials and difficult times in our lives praise is a powerful form of spiritual warfare. (Incidentally, have you ever seen children praising the Lord? They do it with all their hearts, not wondering about what their friends are thinking.)
We actually see an example of this in the New Testament when Paul and Silas were in prison with their feet in the stocks and they were praying and singing hymns to God (Acts 16:25-26). I’m sure most of you know what happened – a mighty earthquake caused all of the prison doors to be opened up and chains came off! Praising God in the middle of adversity is not an easy thing to do but we do it because we know that God is in control and: “All things work together for good to those who love God (Rom 8:28 NKJV).
"For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind" (2 Tim 1:7; NKJV). Fear does not come from God, He gives us power, love and soundness of mind. We must discipline our thought patterns (Phil 4:8) and reject fear.
"The
Lord is my light and my salvation; Whom shall I fear? The Lord is the strength of my life; Of whom shall I be afraid" (Ps 27:1; NKJV). With Jesus as our saviour He is our light, He shows us the way and gives us strength to resist all the fearful thoughts the devil will try to bring us. As we walk in God's love it will drive out all fear from us (1John 4:18). Jesus was on His way to heal a young girl when news came that she had died. Jesus simply turned to the father and said: "Do not be afraid; only believe" (Mark 5:36; NKJV). Jesus raised the child from the dead. When things in life try to produce fear in our minds we need to trust God, nothing is impossible for Him (Luke 1:37).
Eph 4:2b in the Passion Translation reads, “Always demonstrate gentleness and generous love toward one another, especially toward those who may try your patience.” This reminds me of 1 Cor 13:5b, “Love is not easily irritated.” Wow! Behaving like that is not something that comes easily to most people. Do you have someone in your life that irritates you at times? I’m guessing most people would answer, yes and it’s often someone close to us, like a family member. Our natural response would probably be to snap at them or say something we would regret later. However, if we are Christians, we are not natural people, we are supernatural! We have the Holy Spirit on the inside of us to help us respond with the unconditional, sacrificial agape love of God. Of course, this doesn’t come easily to us as we are used to responding “in the flesh.” However, it’s not impossible or God wouldn’t have told us to do it. We have to train ourselves to think before we speak. One way of doing this is to write these verses on a card and stick them somewhere handy so that when we are tempted to be irritated, we can read them and ask God to help us respond in love because “love never fails” (1 Cor 13:8a NKJV).
I was studying the first epistle of John recently and noticed again the apostle’s emphasis on love. God is love (1 John 4:8, 16) and: “we love Him because He first loved us” (1 John 4:19; NKJV). He loved us so much that He sent His Son Jesus to die on a cross for us (1 John 3:16) and He calls us His Children (1 John 3:1). His love is perfected in us (1 John 2:5; 4:12, 17) as we walk in His Word (1 John 2:5) and love and
obey God. The love of God is to keep His commandments (1 John 5:2). We and people watching us can be confident that we are Christians when we express love for each other (1 John 2:7; 3:14). We are called to love our brothers and sisters in Christ (1 John 4:20-21; 5:1) and John adds that if we do not do this, we cannot claim to love God (1 John 4:20). The apostle clearly states that if we do not love our brothers and sisters, we are still dead in our sins (1 John 3:14) and we are not of God (1 John 3:10; 4:7). If we truly have an intimate, ongoing relationship with God, His love should shine from us (1 John 4:16), and we will walk in love as Jesus did (1 John 2:6).
The apostle John repeatedly urges us to: “love one another”, in this epistle (1 John 3:11, 23; 4:7). In fact, he wrote that, we should be willing to lay down our lives for each other (1 John 3:16). Love for others is more than words but has to be expressed in deeds and in true sincerity (1 John 3:18). With all the worldly resources that we have at our disposal if we fail to help our brothers and sisters materially how can we claim that the love of God is in us? (1 John 3:17).
The apostle John is so clear on God’s love for us and the Lord’s command that we allow that love to flow to others. Let us love as God loves us (1 John 4:19)! Do I hear an Amen?