MERRY MONDAY BY PARRIS BAILEY–
“The LORD thy God in the midst of thee is mighty; he will save, he will rejoice over thee with joy; he will rest in his love, he will joy over thee with singing.” Zephaniah.3:17
Over 40 years ago my life drastically changed. Since then I guess I’ve been spending my time apprehending what grabbed a hold of me at the young age of 16. Today and many days I love to reflect on the love of God. The kids are grown, the house is quiet and I find my cup runneth over with how in the world did a girl like me find this GOD KINDA LOVE? I so remember the sorrow and the hopelessness I was surrounded in. Has God rocked your world? I found this quote that was so interesting.
“What a wonderful rush of exuberant gladness there is in these words! The swift, short clauses, the triple invocation in the former verse, the triple promise in the latter, the heaped together synonyms, all help the impression. The very words seem to dance with joy. But more remarkable than this is the parallelism between the two verses. Zion is called to rejoice in God because God rejoices in her. She is to shout for joy and sing because God’s joy too has a voice, and breaks out into singing. For every throb of joy in man’s heart, there is a wave of gladness in God’s. The notes of our praise are at once the echoes and the occasions of His. We are to be glad because He is glad: He is glad because we are so. We sing for joy, and He joys over us with singing because we do. His joy is in self-impartation; His delights are in the sons of men: ‘As the bridegroom rejoiceth over the bride, so shall thy God rejoice over thee.’ His gladness is in His children when they let Him love them, and do not throw back His love on itself. As in man’s physical frame it is pain to have secretions dammed up, so when God’s love is forced back upon itself and prevented from flowing out in blessing, some shadow of suffering cannot but pass across that calm sky. He is glad when His face is mirrored in ours, and the rays from Him are reflected from us.”
His love for us is so deep that it finds no utterance than the cross. He rests in His love over me and no longer holds sin to my account. That in itself is huge! We can have a perpetual sabbath and find contentment knowing He loves us and has given us purpose. I pray your face reflects His and the rays of His love fall on everyone around. Now that is some good preaching and hope it jumpstarts your MONDAY!