Zephaniah 3:17

How was your week? Did you have an awesome week? Or, did you have a week that was going pretty well…until the last Friday?

That’s the kind of week I had: everything was pretty cool…all peaches and cream…and WHAM…I got slammed on Friday at work. Can you relate? It wasn’t just one thing at work…I was getting slammed every minute and every second of the entire day! When I got home, I ate dinner and immediately crawled into bed and slept.

In the book of John, there is a passage that teaches us that God’s Word gives us life. I wanted to share a passage that helped restore my vigor and verve…and I’d like to share it to help set our hearts for our service today.


Zeph 3:17

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."

Awesome passage that displays a range of emotions that God expresses towards us.
· He is with us
· He saves us
· Other versions, say that God is a warrior!
· God delights in us
· He quiets us with his love
· He rejoices with singing

This is the God we worship today.

One aspect I love about God: is that God's love calms us... I love reading parallel passages. One version says that God will not speak of our pasts nor recall them. Another describes God calming all of our fears. I think about a time when my son was an infant. A friend of mine showed me a way to quiet my son's cries. Cole would cry if he were irritated, bothered, tired or afraid. My friend showed me a way to calm down my son quickly.

He told me to hold his chest against my own so we could feel each other's heartbeat. Every time he'd cry, I'd remember to hold his chest next to mine until I could feel his heartbeat and he could feel mine.

It's the same way with our relationship with God. When we are praying to him, reading his Scriptures, worshipping him with our mind, soul and strength...we can feel his heartbeat.

The New Living Translation says: “[We will] be quieted in his love and our fears will be calmed”.

God’s Word not only grants us life…it grants us peace.