Wednesdays Word....Verse

I always find it a bit odd when I come up with my blog post ideas because 1. they generally happen last minute and 2. they are usually totally random but this time I am on the ball and typing this up several days in advance because things just so happened to happen in a nice and fashionable order, which is a first. It took a couple days but it all started piecing together while bringing my daughter home from preschool while listening to sports radio. Totally random because the only things I was hearing in the car was "Are you bringing me home or Grandpa" and then "Oh man I want Grandpa to bring me home" and "can I walk home home? I want mom". This is usually the extent of the 1 sided 10 minute conversations that I have with my daughter on our drives home so I usually listen to sports radio to kill the time but my mind wandered to Bible Verses; more specifically what people consider to be their own personal "Life Verse". Now if you don't have one don't run out all willy nilly and try to find one because they are something you can't force upon yourself and they tend to actually find you.  

Now you might be wondering what is a Life Verse? I'd describe it as that 1 verse in the Bible that you have committed to memory and to your heart. The one that you can cling too in moments of need and live your life by for others to see. You have your gimmes like Philippians 4:13 I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me and Psalms 118:24 This is the day that the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it to John 3:16 For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. Now don't get me wrong these are 3 very powerful and beautiful messages in the Bible but they are almost a cop out and are extremely over used because everyone knows them....or at least should know them. I will apologize now if all 3 of these are your favorite verses or a single one is "your" verse. 

But in thinking this over I came to the conclusion these "Life Verses" fall into 4 categories.....Salvation, Hope, Advice and just random randomness.

Salvation  
You have the above mentioned John 3:16 but there are many powerful messages that people the world over have been brought to Christ through the hearing of and understanding with their hearts these simple truths. Many of these great writings can be found in Romans but none can describe it better than Romans 8:38-39  For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers,  neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord. One of the most concise and to the point purposes of Jesus can be found in Hebrews 7:25 Therefore he is able to save completely (or forever) those who come to God through him, because he always lives to intercede for them. These are just a couple that come to mind and there are plenty more and most likely better ones but I am by no means a Bible verse trivia champion. 

Hope 
I'm going to lump a few things in here with Hope and that would be Grace, Love, Faith and Mercy. Each one of these could very well be a category in their own right but then this post would just get too long and you wouldn't read it and then I'd get a complex and it's just not worth it in the long run. In a roundabout way love, grace and mercy all give us hope so that's why I categorized these under hope. But then again you could make a case of rearranging these to lead them back to one another. So to give each category their due, I will pick a verse relating to each of them.  
Ephesians 2:8-10   For it is by grace you have been saved, through  faith—and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God not by works, so that no one can boast.  For we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do. Now you could probably toss this one into the salvation pot but since it specifically mentions grace I'm going that route. To narrow love down to one verse is nearly impossible. There are different types of love mentioned in the Bible because the Greek broke love down into several different levels but we pretty much use love pretty loosely in the English language. The shortest summation of love can be found in 1 John 4:19 We love because He first loved us. I didn't understand this until I truly accepted God's grace and I honestly feel I didn't know love until I understood His love for me. Faith gets mentioned differently in the Bible too. Sometimes it's correlated to someone being healed or being granted favor in God's eyes but usually faith is mentioned along the lines of being saved as you see in the above Ephesians passage. But it all comes back to that individual persons faith or lack there of. Hebrews 11 is about faith in action. Nearly every verse starts off with By Faith but 11:1 puts it best....  Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see. Like I pointed out earlier these subtopics relate to each other very well and each one could be the main reference. Mercy can be God's greatest gift if we've experienced the need to give it or receive it and one of the best explanations is found in Titus 3:4-7  But when the kindness and love of God our Savior appeared, He saved us, not because of righteous things we had done, but because of His mercy. He saved us through the washing of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit, whom He poured out on us generously through Jesus Christ our Savior, so that, having been justified by His grace, we might become heirs having the hope of eternal life. Again the repeating theme of love & grace can be found within a passage about mercy which further leads me to believe we need grace, love, faith and mercy to have hope. Each of these verses should give us hope. Many of the Psalms are David crying out to God or songs of glory giving his people hope. Psalm 62 talks of being attacked and I don't think of it as necessarily in a physical sense but also spiritually; as David talks about his soul finding rest in God but also knowing where their hope comes from. Psalm 62:5-8 Yes, my soul, find rest in God; my hope comes from Him. Truly He is my rock and my salvation; He is my fortress, I will not be shaken. My salvation and my honor depend on God; He is my mighty rock, my refuge. Trust in him at all times, you people; pour out your hearts to Him, for God is our refuge. Hope can be that one thing we have left when we feel like we've lost everything else. The song In Christ Alone may be one of the best songs ever written but the 1st verse states it best:
In Christ alone my hope is found He is my light, my strength, my song This Cornerstone, this solid ground Firm through the fiercest drought and storm What heights of love, what depths of peace When fears are stilled, when strivings cease My Comforter, my All in All Here in the love of Christ I stand.
And it looks like I just found my next blog post.

 Advice 
Biblical advice can come in many forms for many different topics. You can find the wisdom of Jesus through his parables and teachings that are just as relevant today as nearly 2000 years ago. Though many times I think people try to read too much into Jesus's words for some hidden meaning forgetting that many of the people he was preaching to were simple every day people and he was teaching them in a way they were used to since much of their culture and history was passed down within the family orally so they knew stories and when he could relate it to them in a fashion they could understand it's meaning wasn't lost. You could probably argue the best advice is given to Moses in the 10 commandments but many words of wisdom can be found throughout the Old Testament but the book of Proverbs is littered with advice on nearly every topic you could think of in nice short bits. But here's some advice on advice. Proverbs 13:10 Pride only leads to arguments,but those who take advice are wise. 

My favorite Bible verse some may classify as odd or strange because to some people it doesn't make a lot of sense; but in the situation it was used to the people it was said to it was the right words at the right time. We covered this verse in youth group the other night so it was already on the top of my mind when everything else started popping into my head. My verse is Matthew 4:19 "Come, follow me," Jesus said, "and I will make you fishers of men." Now remember Jesus said this to Peter and Andrew 2 brothers who were fishermen...it was the family business. The next verse states they left at once and followed him. Why? Even though the fisherman in me totally gets what Jesus has asked them to do I still wonder how those 11 words could convince someone to leave their life and their families to follow someone they didn't know. That's where the random comes in; not just because this seems like a weird verse to be your favorite or an odd event in the Bible but the fact that it is a very significant event in the Bible and can be the most important event in our own lives. I'm talking about that moment when you listen to God's call and then act upon it knowing it'll change your life despite not knowing where He will lead you. I'm not talking about becoming a missionary or deciding to go to seminary; I'm talking about the little things that can become huge things to the lives you may touch. It could be the first step in the life saving acceptance of Jesus Christ as your savior or just the simple gesture of praying for someone when you feel that nudge. Even becoming a Sunday school teacher or youth leader where you will help build that solid foundation for the kids you will come in contact with because you can affect generations of families by just taking the time to first listen and then setting aside the time to do God's work here on earth.

Now don't get me wrong I'm not advocating a need for a Life Verse but it's always a good thing to have a few in your back pocket for various situations because you never know when you'll need them. Which is why I'm glad our church puts a verse on a card for us each week to take with us and place it where we need it...in our hearts and our memory.

Well this became much longer than I originally planned but one last thing......if your favorite verse comes from Deuteronomy then I think we need to have a sit down because some of that stuff just makes me wince; trust me if you're a guy you will cringe too.