Rejoicing Over You In Song
“The Lord your God in your midst, The Mighty One, will save; He will rejoice over you with gladness, He will quiet you with His love, He will rejoice over you with singing.” Zephaniah 3:17 NKJV
Sometimes religion gives us an image of Jesus as one who is always watching us just waiting for us to make a mistake. He is watching and waiting for the opportunity to correct us. We focus so much on our mistakes and failures that we forget that Jesus loves us and He always wants, the very best for us, His very best for you. Similarly, we tend to have the unfortunate image of God the Father as a grumpy and unforgiving old man who is perpetually angry and disappointed with us. These are such horrible misconstructions of who God is.
Be honest with yourself, when you consider what Jesus must think of you, you are probably not picturing Jesus as being very happy. Think of Jesus looking at you right now, do you see Him smiling? Do you see Him with a face of joy as He looks steadfastly at you? If most of us picture Jesus looking at us, it will make us want to turn away in shame. We don’t see Jesus as joy filled where we are concerned.
But now look at what Zephaniah says as He relays a true picture of Jesus. Think of it, He is rejoicing over you with gladness, His love for you will quiet the discontent of your heart if you look at Him. He is rejoicing over you to such a degree that He is singing over you as He looks at you. Wow, I bet you didn’t see that in your mind did you? But that is exactly what you should see because that is the heart and passion that Jesus has for you. Don’t try to live up to it, you cannot. Just accept what He freely gives because of His love for you.
Jesus is always with us. The verse even specifies that He is always in our midst. That means He sees everything, and since He sees everything we fully expect an angry reproof. But that is not the picture that we get from the prophet who is telling us what Jesus is saying to us. The picture you should have right now, today, is a picture of Jesus rejoicing over you with song. He delights in you to the point of song. So rather turning from Him instead we should be quick to praise Him.
No matter what is happening in your day, you can stop and picture Jesus singing over you in His joy for you. If you can see that then your concerns for the day should turn to songs of praise to Jesus. Jesus is rejoicing over you with singing. With that knowledge shouldn’t we go through our day with confidence, peace and singing songs of our joy and praise to Him?
J Todd Hostetler