Every day, the Lord leads me through His written Word. He shows me what to do, what to say, how to handle situations. Because let’s face it…life is hard and full of pitfalls!
But each day as I study the Word of God and His precepts, He’s guiding me.
To get through my day, well, to get through LIFE actually. 🙂 I absolutely find it CRUCIAL to spend time with Him.
There’s not a day that goes by that I can’t sit at His feet, asking Him what He will have me do today.
I WANT to be used by Him. He gives me such an incredible hunger and desire to serve others for Him and today, He’s asked me to tell you, “His mercy endures forever”. 🙂
It comes from Psalm 118:1-4.
Give thanks to the Lord, for He is good;
For His mercy is everlasting.
Let Israel say,
“His mercy is everlasting.”
Oh let the house of Aaron say,
“His mercy is everlasting.”
Let those who fear the Lord say,
“His mercy is everlasting.”
What catches my attention the most is the last part…let those who fear the Lord.
I have to admit, when I first started studying the Bible as a new believer, I had no idea what the “fear of the Lord” meant.
Is He some fire and brimstone God that is going to strike people down for some twisted kick? Is He a God of oppression? We should all FEAR the Lord. He will abuse us?
But none of that is true! While He IS just and fair (ask ANY one of my enemies! 😛 ) and there is a part of Him that IS chastisement and punishment when we disobey Him, it’s never mean. He punishes us for correction, to get our attention, to get us to obey, to call us back to Him, because He loves us so very much.
So we need to look at the word “fear”.
What does it mean?
To us, in our culture today, fear means terror, dread, anxiety, fright, apprehension.
But that’s not at all what fear means in the Bible.
Fear in this case here in the text, it means a sense of respect, awe, and submission.
We are to be in AWE of the Lord.
We are to respect Him greatly.
We are to be in submission to our God.
But I wasn’t. I didn’t have a real GOOD, solid sense of AWE for Him. No wonder or amazement in my heart and I really wanted to learn what the fear of the Lord meant and so early on in my Christian walk, I prayed.
I asked God to give me an understanding (not a knowledge OF), but an EXPERIENCIAL understanding of the fear of the Lord.
Nothing happened right away. But over time, I started to see His amazingness. I’ve seen miracles like you wouldn’t believe!
Things that make you drop down and praise the Lord.
I’ve seen things that aren’t POSSIBLE happen become possible.
How was it that I could live such a wealthy lifestyle on only $18k/year before I started blogging?
I mean, at one point, I wanted to see where and how I was doing it and I did a super deep study of my balances and income and expenses.
On paper, it wasn’t possible. The income was $18k, the expenses were over that. There was no other income. No other things coming in and YET, I was able to have around $7k in my savings account! While living on $18k, my BILLS were $1,495/month, then you add in extras. Things like shampoo, conditioner, paper towels. Anything that the “bills” didn’t cover. That is AT LEAST a good $200-$300/month-ish.
So my income was $18k and my total LIVING EXPENSES were around $1,700-$1,800ish/month. That puts me at about $20,400-$21,600/year. The living expenses were more than my income and YET, I was ALSO able to save $7k for a car. That would put me around $27,400-$28,600/year on a $18k/year income and yet, I accrued absolutely no debt.
You see what I mean?
On paper, it doesn’t make sense. There’s no possible way for that to happen. At all. It’s absolutely impossible. UNLESS…
Unless you have a God that isn’t bound by the laws of OUR world. He can do anything He wants and He was blessing me, miraculously.
It was awe-inspiring to watch and over the years, that’s just ONE example of all the things He’s done in my life.
I think that we have to REMEMBER Him.
Remember those miracles.
Remember His power. His majesty. Remember.
Because, over time, we start to forget things like that. How He works miracles all the time. How He shows us His mercy and grace time and time again.
How has He blessed you in a time when it wasn’t possible and yet, it was happening? There could be no explanation EXCEPT FOR Christ.
I bet you can point to at least one time in your life, if not more!
While His mercy for us is in a lot of areas, have you considered that fearing the Lord IS His mercy to you?
I mean, REALLY think about this.
He’s a big God, created the whole universe, right?!
He doesn’t HAVE TO show us His awesomeness. What big deal would it be to a God so big like that if WE, puny little humans, believe Him?!
But that He loves us! And so it DOES matter.
It proves His goodness. When we have a right understanding of the fear of the Lord, we worship Him. We praise Him. And in that, we bring Him honor.
He is worthy to be praised, oh how He is!
Today as you go about your day, I want you to think about all the ways that He’s shown you His awesomeness. The things He’s done that seem impossible.
How has He shown you Matthew 19:26 is true? “With men this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.”
WE, as humans, are bound by the laws of the world. Of Earth. But HE….is NOT!
What is impossible for US, is nothing to God. He’s not bound by our rules. Nothing is impossible for Him!
Do you have a good sense of fear of the Lord?
If not, pray for it.
Pray for Him to help you have that sense of wonder and awe and respect for Him that is so critical to our lives as godly people. Ask Him to help you EXPERIENCE this and not just have a working knowledge of it, but to experience it and see it first hand so that you may know.
Truly, His mercy endures forever! He is good and just, fair and righteous. He is worthy to be praised and loved and cherished daily, hourly, minute by minute!
He is kind to the brokenhearted.
He is near to the poor in spirit.
He’s a merciful God and we can thank Him for loving us so greatly as He does! 🙂
