Saturday, January 7, 2023

 

Saturday, January 7, 2023


Psalm 19

Song of Songs 1:1-11

John 4:39-54


And many more believed because of His word.


How beautiful are the words of Jesus! Many came to believe in Him because of the testimony of the Samaritan woman, words of His they gained second hand. Many more believed from sitting with Him, inviting Him into their homes, hearing first-hand as they shared dinner with Him. We have words of His kept for us in the text of the Bible, words which warm our hearts and stir them into conflagrations of love.


The word of His power pushes up the plants from the earth, and beats the hearts of every living thing. We walk through our gardens, down the streets, in parks and the bush: the beauty of His word overwhelms us. Lying on our backs and staring into the night sky we see the beauty of His word beamed down in galaxies upon galaxies. The many colours of the sky, the black of the storm, the purple of the clearing: it all draws its beauty from the words proceeding from the mouth of God.


In our inner life, we meditate on His word. Not just on the stunning beauty of the natural world, or the invisible yet observably beautiful links between each and every human in our network of relationships, but also His precepts. Because God has spoken, we know for absolute certainty the difference between right and wrong. God is here with us, saying “here is the path, walk in it”. Imagine the misery we would be in, forever wandering in circles trying to figure that out on our own! (We don’t have to look far; just try reading secular philosophy and see how quickly it makes you go cross-eyed.)


For all that God is, it is truly amazing that He should also love each one of us as if we were the only thing in heaven and earth to love. As if all the power of the love of the Triune God were poured into one creature, and that one creature was me. Who am I to receive this love? Yet I do, and there is nothing more I need.



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