"[Moses said, 'God's word] is no empty word for you, but your very life'" - Deuteronomy 32:47
I promise. This is a clean bathroom story. Well, almost.
A friend of mine and I were making our way to the men's room sink at the same time. He was talking. I was listening. And watching.
He turns on the water and then starts pumping the built-into-the-bathroom-counter soap container. I smiled and told him the soap was in the store-bought container next to the built-in container. But my friend was so excited to talk about God's work in our church and the Prayer Meeting we were about to go into that he never heard me and he never even looked to see that there was no soap on his hands, even though he was scrubbing away and then thoroughly rinsing as if he'd gotten a handful of the liquid cleaner.
I told you that this was a clean bathroom story. Almost.
The problem, of course, was really not my friend's attentiveness. My goodness, shouldn't somebody be allowed to be excited about the Living God without having to worry that a soap container is not really containing soap?
As if the soap container cares, I blame the soap container. I mean that container and connected pump had the audacity to present itself as being full of a life-promoting cleanser.
But it was empty.
God aches, at least, when anyone or anything presents himself, herself, or itself as being full of a life-promoting something when, in truth, he, she, or it is empty.
Good thing, though, that there's one thing in this world that we never have to be suspicious about. There's one thing in this world that, when it says it's full of a life-promoting something, then it's full of a life-promoting something and more.
As God, through Moses, said in today's Bible verse, "[God's word] is no empty word for you, but your very life." (Deuteronomy 32:47)
Furthermore, God's word itself is not only not empty, but when God sends his word, it does not come back empty either. God's word fully accomplishes what God says it will. So when God makes you a promise, you can take it to the bank and deposit it in full! Read it for yourself in Isaiah 55:11, "So shall my word be that goes out from my mouth; it shall not return to me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose, and shall succeed in the thing for which I sent it."
And what God's word accomplishes is that it insures that we ourselves will not be empty (2 Corinthians 9:3), but instead that we'll be filled with God's life and love to overflowing (Luke 6:38).
And, being God's promise, that's no empty promise.
Praise God!
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