DAILY BIBLE READING:1 Samuel 29:1-31:13
John 11:55-12:19
Psalm 118:1-18
Proverbs 15:24-26
BIBLE VERSE(S) FOR TODAY:
Psalm 118:6 "The Lord is for me; I will not be afraid. What can a mere mortal do to me?"
REFLECTIONS ON TODAY'S BIBLE VERSE(S):
Talk about a positive perspective! Our Verse for Today is the utterance of a man who wasn't afraid of people and had a substantive reason for his courage.
The reason for his courage? He said: "The Lord is for me; I will not be afraid."
Now, we have to be so careful when we look at those words. Why? Because when we read them, we may come to the erroneous conclusion that we're the ones calling the shots and we want the Lord on our side.
The question is not, "Is the Lord on my side?" The question is, "Am I on the Lord's side?"
"The Lord is for me" should be taken as the utterance of a person who is living his/her life to please the Lord and is regularly seeking forgiveness and cleansing from Him when they mess up. As they follow Him and get on His side, then it can be said that the Lord is for them.
And, when the Lord is for them, they won't be afraid of what people can do to them.
Does this mean that people will never hurt us? Does this mean we will be protected from all things that are undesirable?
Nope. God was on Jesus' side and yet He was constantly mistreated and maligned by the Pharisees and was eventually tortured and killed on the cross.
A Christian doesn't believe that following the Lord makes them immune to all pain and suffering. Instead, they realize that whatever man can do to them MUST be initiated or allowed by their loving Heavenly Father. It has to come from / through His hands before it reaches us.
So, even though others may cause trouble for us, we realize that God has to allow it for His own purposes. And since it came from Him, then we can rest in the fact that He will be with us in the trouble and He desires to use it to make us more like Jesus.
It is in this sense that we fear no man when we fear the Lord.
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