To Encourage You

John 16:2-4 “Indeed, the hour is coming when whoever kills you will think he is offering service to God. And they will do these things because they have not known the Father, nor me. But I have said these things to you, that when their hour comes you may remember that I told them to you.”

Jesus told His disciples the things He did with the intention that they remember what He said.  He didn’t tell them things that were meant only for that single moment in time when He spoke them, but for the future as well.  Jesus said that the Law – another name for his Word – is eternal, for “until heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the Law until all is accomplished” (Matthew 5:18).  His words are so important for all of life, that He would have us to “meditate on his Word day and night” (Psalm 1:2).  In another place we are told that “these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise. You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes.You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates” (Deuteronomy 6:6-9). The psalmist understood this when he said “I have hidden your word in my heart that I might not sin against you” (Psalm 119:11). 

So, are you hiding his word in your heart?  Are you memorizing it so you can think about it throughout the day?  Are you taking practical steps to help you to remember what God has said to us?  He has given us the tools in his Word to prepare us for when hard times come into our lives. He has equipped us with the wisdom to make good decisions in the face of difficult choices.  In his Word he has given us a “lamp to our feet and a light to out path” (Psalm 119:105).   Indeed “His divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of him who called us to his own glory and excellence, by which he has granted to us his precious and very great promises, so that through them you may become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped from the corruption that is in the world because of sinful desire” (2 Peter 1:3-4).   And note that it is Peter that said these words, someone who learned the hard way that the Words of John 16 above were very, very true (John 21:18-19).