Welcome to “Going Deeper with the Word.” In this segment, we welcome people of all backgrounds, religious or not, to review with me the Word of God. The Word of God provides guidance, direction, and instructions for living our lives and walking with God.
Today, we examine how God’s Word provides clear guidance and direction about how to be a vessel for Him.
Let’s review examples of God’s Word that can lead and guide our steps and back up the principles we learned in today’s message. I will be reading scripture today from the Amplified Bible.
Here is our first verse:
For the Lord God is a sun and shield;
The Lord bestows grace and favor and honor;
No good thing will He withhold from those who walk uprightly.
– Psalm 84:11 AMP
In this verse, we learn of God’s favor to those who walk uprightly. In other words, those who seek God’s ways and seek to be obedient to God will receive favor. In this verse, we also see mention that God will bestow grace and honor. I can personally attest to this verse. While I am most certainly not perfect and I am a sinner – as all of us are, I do my best to walk uprightly before God. I do believe that I am rewarded with favor as well as grace and honor. Many times I know this favor is occurring behind the scenes completely unbeknownst to me in a way – that I just experience the outcome of the favor.
Let’s have a look at another verse.
“Things which the eye has not seen and the ear has not heard,
And which have not entered the heart of man,All that God has prepared for those who love Him [who hold Him in affectionate reverence, who obey Him, and who gratefully recognize the benefits that He has bestowed].”
– 1 Corinthians 2:9
AMP
This is one of my favorite verses and one that I read often. While there are dozens of verses in the Bible that speak to blessing, what I truly like about this one is that it speaks to blessings that we cannot possibly have seen or heard or even been aware of. As I touched on in the previous verse, God can and will bless those who revere and honor Him. This verse reveals that the blessings we may experience will often be the likes of which we could not have even conceived on our own! This is just one example of how good God is – he wants to bless us and even surprise us in the process.
Let’s look at one last verse.
Be strong and courageous, do not be afraid or tremble in dread before them, for it is the Lord your God who goes with you. He will not fail you or abandon you.”
– Deuteronomy 31:6 AMP
This verse reminds us that God is with us at every turn and that we need not be afraid when we are approaching circumstances that bring fear into our hearts. A very tangible way this shows up for me is traveling by plan. I am not a good flyer. I am just not. It introduces anxiety and fear every time and every time I fly I need to be very purposeful to remember the elements of this verse. That God is with me, no matter what. Only God can give me the peace I need to fly with greatly suppressed anxiety and fear. It is 100% gone. No, but it goes from an 8 or 9 out of 10 to 1 or 2 for sure.
I also want to touch on the fact that this does not mean we will never experience harm. While the reason we experience suffering is an entirely different message, I do want to touch on two things briefly. Firstly, God allows us all to have free will. The good neighbor at the end of your block and a serial killer both have free will. Therefore, there are those with the will to do good and those with the will to do evil. It is a fact of the entire planet for all of mankind, so we will inevitably experience harm in some shape or form at the hands of those who wish to do evil deeds and experience suffering as a result.
Secondly, there are also situations in which we are just in the wrong place at the wrong time. Consider the individual who is drowsy due to 12-hour shifts 4 days in a row. On the 5th day, on the way home from work he or she dozes off behind the wheel and veers into oncoming traffic causing an accident with injuries and maybe even fatalities. This individual did not set out to do evil when they took the extra shifts to feed their family, yet great suffering has taken place.
In both cases, God can always turn circumstances of suffering into good. God can take any situation and transform it for our benefit, or even another’s. Yes, if we are truly seeking to serve God, we should understand that we may experience suffering in such a way that God will use the circumstances of our suffering for the good of someone else.
Let us all put our trust in God and invite His influence into our lives each day.
Thank you for your time in reviewing these verses with me today.
Thank you for the opportunity to share encouragement. Here @walkinginstepwithGod we truly appreciate your support. We are fully committed to Christ and the community. We invite you to join us in fellowship and to seek opportunities for fellowship in your local community as well.
