The word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, even to the division of soul and spirit. Do you love the word of God? I love the word of God. You know, it’s so encouraging to see how powerful it is in our lives. And you may have heard of this, and I just wanted to go a little bit deeper into Psalm 118 today. Did you know that Psalm 117 is the shortest chapter in the Bible? Psalm 119 is the longest chapter in the Bible. And Psalm 118 is the middle chapter of the Bible. There’s 594 chapters before Psalm 118, and there’s 594 chapters after Psalm 118. Interestingly, this is a little bit more coincidental maybe, but if you add 594 plus 594, it’s 1,188. And if you go to Psalm 118, verse 8, 1188, it says, “It is better to take refuge in the LORD than to trust in man.” How’s that for a very central message? And the middle verse in the middle chapter, which would be verse 15, it says, “The sound of joyful shouting and salvation is in the tents of the righteous. The right hand of the LORD does valiantly.” You know, if you go a little bit further in there, into verse 22, it says, “The stone which the builders rejected has become the chief cornerstone. This is the Lord’s doing.” How powerful is that?
Do you know the ‘what’ and the ‘who’ the cornerstone is in the Bible? It’s actually referring to Christ, Himself. So if we go to Mark 12:10, Jesus said of Himself, He said, “Have you not read this scripture, ‘The stone which the builders rejected, this became the chief cornerstone; this came about from the Lord, and it is marvelous in our eyes.'” How marvelous is this, that the Word of God Himself, Jesus, it says, the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we saw His fullness as of the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth. And so the Word of God Himself, Jesus, is prophesying about Himself in the central chapter of the whole Bible, talking about Himself being the chief cornerstone. And indeed, this is the very cornerstone of the whole Bible. And He’s talking about Himself and how He was rejected and would become our salvation and our righteousness. So the Word of God Himself, the cornerstone in the very center of the Bible, prophesies about Himself, about being our salvation. You know, the Jews could not have planned this out, because the New Testament wasn’t even invented yet. It wasn’t even there. It wasn’t written down yet.
And the New Testament writers could not have planned this out, because the New Testament was not even compiled together. It wasn’t until hundreds of years later, and this is the very center verse of all of the Christian Bible. Is that a coincidence? Are you kidding me? This is the Bible, the very center. If you’re a believer, this is going to be very encouraging to you, I’m sure. Maybe if you’re an unbeliever, if you are not sure about where your faith lies, let this encourage you today that Christ not only is the center of all creation and the center of the Bible and the center of the whole message of the Jewish and Christian scriptures, but He wants to be the center and the cornerstone of your life. He wants to be the capstone, the thing that holds it all together.
So Father in heaven today, I thank you that your word is living and active in our lives, and it is the Word made flesh, Christ Himself revealed. And so today, I pray that we would be encouraged to read your word more. I pray today, and I release this today by the power of your Holy Spirit, that the word of God is coming to life in us, and it’s going to begin to come out all around us in our lives as it’s living in active in our lives. We thank you for encouraging us and reminding us of your rhema word, what you’re saying in our lives today, we receive it. Help us to remember to ask you for help by your Holy Spirit when we read your word. And I thank you for help for your word to be released from us to the world around us. In Jesus’ name, amen.