A Different Perspective

We are all familiar with the concept of loving God and in expressing our love through praise songs. It's easy to envision Heaven as a gigantic choir loft where we will all stand together, raise our hands in worship and our voices in praise when we come before The Lord in all His glory. Our Sunday morning worship services are the lessons we take to develop this skill and our daily lives represent the daily practice that we may be proficient. This life is the warm-up for what is to come.

But it is quite another thing to think of the situation being reversed. Yet that is exactly what I'm reading today in

Zephaniah 3:17 (NIV)

¹⁷ The Lord your God is with you,

he is mighty to save.

He will take great delight in you,

he will quiet you with his love,

he will rejoice over you with singing.”

^[1] The Holy Bible : New International Version. electronic ed. Grand Rapids : Zondervan, 1996, c1984

What I read in this passage is recounting of how the Gentiles will encourage the nation of Israel when God dispenses His justice. This passage tells of the days when God will gather his chosen people together and remove their oppressors. In that time, Israel will be reminded by her friends the truths of this passage of which there are five.

The first truth is the presence of the Lord. Zephaniah wrote "The Lord your God is with you..." We serve a God not of distant disdain but of imminent domain. He goes where we go and He is where we are. He neither leaves, nor forsakes, nor steps aside, nor sleeps nor takes vacations from us. If we can grasp the truth of His omnipresent nature in our lives then we should find it easy to conduct ourselves in a manner that is worthy of His calling on our lives.

The second truth is "he is might to save." Not only is He present in our lives, He is busy in our lives. With His presence comes His power which knows no limits. He sets us apart from our enemies on earth and from those in the heavenly realms. In all ways His power is sufficient to protect and preserve us in the face of our enemies.

Third, and this is where the different perspective becomes evident, 'He will take great delight in you.' I opened with prose to remind us how easy it is to take delight in The Lord but according to this passage, He takes great delight in his people. That means that His people are the object of His love. We, his people, are not some afterthought in which He finds amusement. We are the object of His affection, He takes great delight.

Fourth, 'he will quiet you with his love..' He secures his people from their enemies, he takes delight in his people and he removes all their anxiety, trembling and trepidation. God draws His people with an everlasting love into His arms and there they find peace and calm. All attacks will cease, all cares will vanish and in his love, by his love, they will be quieted.

And lastly, 'he will rejoice over you with singing.' That's a totally new concept to me, where God will sing over His people. In the same way that the way our love for God wells up in us to sing His praises, He will rejoice in song over His people. Can you imagine what the song of God must sound like? We think in terms of millions of voices singing to God. What must that one lone voice, God's voice, sound like when singing over the millions of His people?

That day draws nearer when we will discover the answer to that question. Till then, I will sing of His love.

Shalom,

Carl