God Isn’t Mad AT You; He’s Mad ABOUT You. God Rejoices Over You With Singing!

Here is the entire Scripture passage:

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.” (Zephaniah 3:17 NIV)

Some people keep God at a distance, picturing Him as an angry old man with a big stick who is just waiting for them to so much as look sideways, so He can pound them down. That image of God is a lie from the demons in hell!

Here’s the truth: God loves YOU! He’s not mad AT you; He’s mad ABOUT you!

For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.” (John 3:16)

I once heard a sermon where the speaker told us to draw a circle around the word “world” in John 3:16 in our Bibles. Then he had us write the word “me” beside the circle. The idea was to get each of us to begin thinking of God and His relationship with us like this: “For God so loved me, that He that He gave His only son…”.

Because we are finite beings in a finite universe, it’s impossible for us to fully comprehend the concept of an infinite God. If you divide infinity into two parts (or two zillion parts), each of the parts is… infinite!! Each one of us has available to us ONE HUNDRED PERCENT of the infinite God who created the universe!

I cannot truly understand how that works, but I believe it.

I don’t know about you, but I find it reassuring to realize that I cannot understand God. I mean, think how small a God He would be if we humans could understand Him.

Here’s something I CAN understand: God longs to have a close, intimate relationship with each of us. He wants us to know Him personally, not just to know facts about Him.

You may ask, “How can I get to know God?” We get to know God in the same way we get to know each other. We know other people by the words that they say and the works that they do.

It’s the same with God. We know Him by the words that He said and the works that He did. And we get both of those from reading His Word, the Bible.

You Can’t Read It Just Once! God Rejoices Over You When You Regularly Renew Your Mind With His Word!

If someone were suffering from, for example, pain in their lower back (as I have in the past), that person could very likely reduce or eliminate that pain by practicing a discipline of regular stretching and exercise. But you cannot just do the exercises one time and expect any lasting benefit.

It’s the same with Scripture memory. This has to become a habit, a part of your daily life. And like exercising, if you do it, you reap the benefits.

SUMMARY: The entire Bible was written for our benefit!

Just think of all the devotional books that have been written and all the sermons preached, every one of them applying biblical wisdom for our benefit. There must be thousands, perhaps millions of individual applications.

There is an old saying: “What you don’t know won’t hurt you”. Is that true? There may be examples someone might relate to support that. But the converse could also be argued. What if you took hold of a bare electric wire, because you didn’t know that it was connected to a live circuit.

When it comes to Scripture memory and knowing and applying the Word of God, I like this variation of that old saying:

What You Don’t Know Can Never Help You!

Wouldn’t you agree: if you’ve got all those benefits from God in your life, you are equipped and protected to handle whatever the world throws at you, right?

The really awesome thing is, anyone can have this!

PRAYER: “Dear Father in heaven, for much of my life I didn’t know how much You loved me, or that You even cared about me at all. I am overjoyed to learn just how much You really do love… me! Your Word has truly opened my eyes. Thank you!”

- Jan