The Word of the Lord! – Emily's Snippets

One
New Year’s eve, I came home to find my mother sitting by the fireplace reading
the Bible at 11:30 pm. When I asked what she was doing, she replied, “I
want to begin the New Year with Jesus!”

Recently a friend shared a prayer written by Pastor Myron Kirk. It is a
proclamation/ prayer. This is my Bible! It is the inerrant,
unchanging, unfailing, powerful Word of God. I am who it says I am. I can
do what it says I can do. I can have what it says I have. I can trust it, rely
on it, and believe it. This Bible changes me, delivers me, empowers me, and
inspires me. I will never be the same. In Jesus’ Name, Amen!

Recently, I was asked to fast from what separated me from God. I knew
immediately it had to be television. For four weeks the television remained
silent, and I learned the joy of silence. I learned God brings
moments and scriptures to my mind, without the noise of the mundane.

I recalled Grandpa Suderman coming to visit. At breakfast time, he laid his
Bible on the table, and despite the hurrying to eat and go to high school, my
two brothers and I waited and listened as he read. Grandpa was seventy-three
years then, He held the Bible open, and lifted his sky-blue eyes and looked at
us in awe. “I never noticed that verse before!” I remember his words clearly
seventy more years later. I forgot my impatience to leave. What did he
see? What touched his heart?

For the word of God is living and active, sharper than
any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of
joints and of marrow, and

discerning
the thoughts and intentions of the heart. Hebrews 4:12.

Now I understand what my Grandpa meant – the awe of the wonder that
is always new, as I read day by day. How sweet are your words to my
taste, sweeter than honey to my mouth! Through your precepts I get
understanding; therefore, I hate every false way. Psalm 119:103-104.

Imagine the change in our lives, the single-mindedness that is ours when we
encounter His Truth that transforms our lives. All this from sixty-six books,
written through the inspiration of God by forty men. Through the stories of
Abraham, Noah, David, Jonah in the Old Testament, proclaim the Redemption God
planned long ago for men through the shed blood of Jesus.

The prophecy in the Old Testament makes it clear to us. Who has
believed what He has heard from us? And to whom has the arm of
the Lord been revealed? For he grew up before him like a young plant,
and like a root out of the dry ground; He had no form or majesty that we should
look at Him and no beauty that we should desire him.He
was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows and
acquainted with grief; and as one from whom men hide their faces He was
despised, and we esteemed Him not. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned, everyone, to his own way; and
the Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of
us all. He was
oppressed, and He was afflicted, yet He opened not his mouth; like a lamb
that is led to the slaughter, and like a sheep
that before its shearers are silent, so He opened not his mouth. Isaiah 53:1-3,
7-8

Psalm 41, 22:14-16 and Zechariah 11:12-13 contain prophecies of Jesus.
Why is the Bible banned in many places in our world? The fear the truth of God will reveal the evil in the hearts of men and form a self-made
prison.

So Jesus said to the Jews who had believed him, “If you abide in my
word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and
the truth will set you free.” John 8:31-32. When people hunger
for freedom, they are longing for God’s love and His redemption

Many years ago, Eve wanted more power and looked for it through disobedience,
eating of the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. Disobedience
repeated over and over pushes God aside to do as one pleases in this world.
When we overlook the teachings of Jesus, we lose one important factor of
redemption. Jesus said to him, “I
am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the
Father except through me.” John 14:6.

Faith comes through knowing God through His Word. It is His word that
gives us hope and trust in the One and only God. His Word gives us Hope and
Trust in the only ONE who leads us through this life’s pitfalls of sin. God
leads us Home.

He transforms our dark stumbling walk to a jubilant one, trusting the One who
gives abundant life. The thief comes only to steal and kill and
destroy. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly. John 10:10.

The awe-filled walk comes when we learn to love God and follow Jesus. He loves
us and then we understand with clarity the first part of the 23^rd
Psalm, ‘The Lord is my Shepherd; I shall not want.’

Put
on then, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate
hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, bearing with
one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving
each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. And above all these put on love, which binds
everything together in perfect harmony. And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to
which indeed you were called in one body. And be thankful. Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and
admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and
spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God. And whatever
you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord
Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through Him. Colossians 3: 12-17.

Comments? eacombs@att.net