I, like some 124 million other people, downloaded and use the YouVersion Bible App. I appreciate the app because it makes it easier for me to locate Scriptures and the Daily Bible Verse helps me start my day with God's Word handy and changing. For the coming year, YouVersion presented a challenge to its users to select a #Verse2014 that would serve as their personal Scripture for the coming year.
While there are many verses that I love and some that I return to often for clarification and encouragement, the verse I selected as my bedrock for the coming year is John 5:8. "Jesus said to him, 'Rise, take up your bed and walk." Jesus speaks these words to a man who has been sitting at the foot of healing pool for 38 years hoping that someone would come along and put him in the water.
He was so close, already, to the healing that he needed. And yet, he sat waiting . . .hoping that someone else could help him get the rest of the way. In my own way, the 365 days of 2013 (and probably some from previous years) were spent at the tail edge of the healing water and rather than muster up one more ounce of strength to fall face first in the healing pool, I prayed and waited for external help.
In walks Jesus - the Saviour I know Him to be, and asks "Do you want to be made well?" And after hearing my excuses of why I'd been stuck in the same place for so long, rather than admonishing me for making excuses, He simply says, "Rise, take up your bed and walk."
No need for you to continue to sit and wait on help. The Calvary is here. Get up. And when you get up, don't prolong this mess by standing in that spot. Walk.
Go somewhere.
Do something.
Who knows what the coming year will bring? Certainly, I don't. I'll set a few goals, make a few plans, but mostly - I'll walk. One foot in front of the other - one step at a time.
May God bless and keep you in this next year. May He "grant you according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with might through His Spirit in the inner man, that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; that you being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the width and length and depth and height - to know the love of Christ which passes knowledge; that you may be filled with all the fullness of God." (Ep. 3:16-19)
Happy New Year Family!
Walk with me.
Love first. Always.
