Lamp to my Feet

“At that time Michael, the great prince who protects your people, will arise. There will be a time of distress such as has not happened from the beginning of nations until then. But at that time your people—everyone whose name is found written in the book—will be delivered. ² Multitudes who sleep in the dust of the earth will awake: some to everlasting life, others to shame and everlasting contempt. 

I have a tattoo on my right foot.  It is Psalm 119:105 “Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path.”  It was a Mother’s Day present.  It’s a reminder to me on what keeps my faith strong.  God’s word.  I love God’s word.  I have spent years studying the reliability of his word. There are so many outside sources that corroborate the truth found in the pages of scripture, that I get giddy when I read them. 

God’s word is perfectly true and as hard as it is to read a rebuke meant to pull me back on the path, it is equally wonderful when I read words such as the ones in Daniel 12.  “But at that time your people—everyone whose name is found written in the book—will be delivered. ² Multitudes who sleep in the dust of the earth will awake: some to everlasting life…”

I just love that! The promise of everlasting life.  This was actually the first time the reference to everlasting life was used in scripture.  How comforting it is to read that things are going to get hard, real hard.  A time of distress such as has not happened from the beginning of nations hard, but there is hope.

Everlasting life. It is promised for God’s people.  This world is not the end.  All the trouble, disease, evil, and deception are not the end.  God has a plan.  It was rolled up in a scroll and saved for the exact right time, but it will come to pass.  His word says it will, so I believe it.

Word Consumption

“Simon Peter answered him, ‘Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. We believe and know that you are the Holy One of God.’”  John 6:68-69

There is no shortage of words today, is there?  Talk radio, 24/7 “news,” the social media explosion, a ubiquity of TV monitors ...  we overindulge in an endless buffet of words!

It is important to evaluate words with a strong mind and choose carefully which ones we will ingest.  Why?  Because their ingredients are the by-product of the heart; some are healthy and others not.  It is as Jesus said, “For out of the overflow of the heart, the mouth speaks.”

Words spoken from one’s sin nature are often harsh, deceiving, accusatory, self-serving or dishonest.  Disagreeable and hard to stomach!  Yet the most dangerous ones are like candy flung to the crowds at a Fourth of July parade ... and containing about the same nutritional value: sugar, syrup and artificial flavoring.  Sweet, but unhealthy, these are things people like to hear, like “there are many paths to God” or “it’s all good.”  Again, listen to Jesus as he speaks to the Pharisees whose “path to God” did not lead to God at all: “... how can you who are evil say anything good?”  If we swallow whatever tantalizes undiscerning palates, the entire body pays the price.

But who but much-maligned Peter, would come up with this grain of truth: “Lord, to whom shall we go?  You have the words of eternal life.  We believe and know that you are the Holy One of God.”  Where did that come from?  Jesus told him, “Blessed are you ... for this was not revealed to you by man, but by my Father in heaven (Matthew16:17).”  Like an expert shopper, Peter squeezed, sniffed and poked around, accepting nothing but bread that would never leave him hungry and water that would forever satisfy (John 6:35).

Jesus is “the bread of life”; the words he speaks are “spirit and life.”  In him, our spirits never go hungry, but are nourished unto eternity.

Picky like Peter, may we fill ourselves with the words of eternal life.  Nothing less.  Nothing more.

"How sweet are your words to my taste, sweeter than honey to my mouth!" Psalm 119:103