He is mighty to save!
I very often get asked the question “What is your favorite verse?” And while I love so many of them and at each moment of my life a different scripture speaks to me directly for the circumstances I am facing, one verse does constantly sing to me, amaze me, dumbfounds me!
Zephaniah 3:17 The LORD your God is with you, the Mighty Warrior who saves. He will take great delight in you; in his love he will no longer rebuke you, but will rejoice over you with singing.”
In one verse, God pretty much tells me everything I need to know to navigate through this crazy, bumpy ride we call life!
First, it tells us God is with us….it doesn’t say some of the time or whenever He wants to be with us or whenever we haven’t royally messed up…it says “He is with us”, period! AKA…All the time. So all of those times I cried out “where are you God” and wondered if He was there, simply because I wasn’t feeling Him in the way I thought I should….He was there…and if I had read this scripture I would have had that promise to hold on to!! Whenever you are feeling alone try quoting this scripture “The Lord my God is with me”….it brings me such peace and is such a reminder that I don’t have to wonder if He is there. It is a truth I can cling to that He is indeed with me!
The mighty warrior who saves!!! I don’t know about you, but sometimes I think I tend to think of God as just gentle. I get so caught up in His loving grace I can forget that He is not a God you want to be on the wrong side of! I forget that the Bible describes Him as our Mighty Warrior who saves!! I love this! You know those moments when you think “How am I going to fight this battle?” I can’t tell you how many times I dig, fight, scrap, work, worry, run, hide, etc….when all I have to do is get out of the way and allow God to be my Mighty Warrior…ready and willing to save me. He is such a gentleman though….and won’t interfere until we ask. So now whenever I find myself up against a giant…..I bow my head first and ask my loving, grace filled Father to pick up His sword and shield and save me!! He has never let me down. I, on the other hand, just wear myself out when I try to do it alone! He is a mighty warrior….THE Mighty Warrior!! Don’t you want Him on your side of the battle?…ask Him to be!!!
He will take great delight in you! Again, this doesn’t say anything about our end of the bargain…it doesn’t list the things we need to do for Him to take great delight in us…He just will and does! Think about something you take great delight in. Me, I love nothing more than one of my children to give me a spontaneous hug. It makes my heart sing. I delight in it. To think that God takes that same kind of delight in me is overwhelming. He is our heavenly Father, He created us in His image. Why do we forget that He finds such joy in us? Why do we let the lies that we are awful, shameful, not good enough, replace the truth that He adores us and delights in us? Sometimes, when the lies try to replace my truth I simply have to say out loud “God takes great delight in me!!” and cling to that promise and the whispered lies fade and the joy finds its place in my heart! He delights in you!! Do you believe it? Claim it outloud, tell yourself, “He takes great delight in me!” As many times as you need to. The Holy Spirit will begin to replace all the lies with this solid truth!!
In His love He will no longer rebuke you! This ties in with the lies we believe from before. We are human and can be wretched and Satan, after tempting us to sin, will then turn around and tell us how awful we are for the sins we have committed. Satan will try to convince us that we are no longer worthy to seek God, that God is too good and Holy to put up with someone like us. But the TRUTH is, if you have given Christ your heart and asked for forgiveness, God’s forgiving grace washes us new. He does not rebuke us, He cleans us, renews us and lifts us up. If you are feeling rebuked by God you are believing a lie!! He tells us right here….He no longer rebukes us! Why? Because He loves us! So run to Him, ask for His forgiveness, turn from that sin and accept His grace. Allow Him to rebuke Satan and the lies he is trying so desperately to sell.
But rejoice over you with singing! Okay, I admit, this one dumbfounds me!!! Leaves me speechless!! In the moments where I am seeking Him and I think about Him singing over me….HIM singing over ME it truly leaves me speechless!! Do your best to picture our Holy God singing to us, over us. The first time I read this I literally broke into tears. “Why would He sing over ME? I have failed Him so many times!” But we have already heard the answer….because He has forgiven us and He has saved us and He takes great delight in us!!! Our Holy Awesome God, if we are willing to trust and accept this truth, is our Warrior who fights our battles for us because we are delightful to Him. He finds such joy in us it causes Him to sing. I don’t know about you but I can’t wait to hear that song!!!
So there you have it! Just about any question we could ask God answered in one verse!!! “God are you there?” …He is there. “God, do you care what I am going through?….he is our mighty warrior who saves! “God is it possible for you to love me?” ….He delights in you. “God, can you possibly forgive me?” …He will rebuke you no longer. And to top it all off….He sings over us….that wasn’t even a question I knew to ask!!
His grace is enough for me! 