What Can We Know from Just One Verse? — Psalm 100:3

It will soon be time to head home. Already, the glow from a streetlight is crawling across the room, broken into bars by the window blinds. A dim bulb in the hallway illuminates the door where your name is etched into the glass above the word “Investigations.” You lean back in your chair and prop your feet on the wooden desk. It’s been a long day, but you have one more job. You rest your chin in your hand and begin reading …

Psalm 100:3 — Know that the Lord, He is God;
It is He who has made us, and not we ourselves;
We are His people and the sheep of His pasture.

What can you know about God from Psalm 100:3?

    • Know that — This is a direct command from God. It is something you are supposed to do. Psalm 100 is full of direct commands — make, serve, come, know, enter, be thankful, bless. You can know that God wants you to know about Him.
    • The LORD — Why all the capital letters? This is how the translators indicate God’s name, YHWH, a name so holy that the Jews wouldn’t say it out loud. This name refers to God’s self-existence. God has existed forever. He wasn’t created or brought into existence in any way. You can know that the eternal, self-existing God is making Himself known to YOU this moment as you study this verse.
    • He is God — The Hebrew word used here is Elohim, which means “the Strong One who is faithful and who should be feared (held in reverence) for who He is.” It is interesting to note that the name is plural — often considered a reference to the trinity. You can know that the powerful God is plural-in-His-oneness and that He should be worshiped.
    • It is He who has made us — God created you. That probably makes you think of His power and His love, and it should. But you should also consider His creativity. He didn’t make you from someone else’s plan — He designed you. You can know that you are the special creation of a God powerful enough to make anything He wanted — and He made you.
    • And not we ourselves; We are His people — The idea here is ownership. You didn’t create yourself, therefore you don’t belong to yourself. God did create you, therefore you belong to Him. You can know that you don’t own yourself; that it is God (that eternal, self-existing, powerful, loving, creative God) who owns you.
    • And the sheep of His pasture — God cares for you and provides for you as a shepherd cares and provides for his flock. (A shepherd lived with his flock and took care of it all day, every day.) You are loved.

You can detect a great deal about God from this one verse. Imagine how much you can find out about Him from the entire Bible …

But it’s late. You stand up, stretch and head for home. Another case solved. You decide to stop on the way for a piece of pie.

Application

Today, kids are taught that they are the products of chance — that there was an explosion that mixed some chemicals that mutated into some simple life form that evolved into … them. And on top of that, they are teased and tormented and ignored and yelled at. Is it any wonder that many of them have a low opinion of themselves?

Let your clubbers know that the God who created them isn’t just any ordinary god. He’s an all-powerful God who could have made anything (and did make everything). But not ONLY did He create them, He loves them and wants them to spend eternity with Him.

This may be hard for kids to believe. After all, if a kid was ignored by her father at breakfast, yelled at by her mom as she walked out the door, picked on by the neighborhood bully as she walked to school, punished for forgetting her homework in math, ignored and alone at lunch, laughed at when she didn’t understand a question in social studies, and slugged by her older sister when she got home, she won’t feel loved or lovable.

That’s where you come in. We learn in 1 John 4:12 that: If we love one another, God abides in us, and His love has been perfected in us. You might be the only person in a kid’s day who shows him any love at all. By loving him and making him feel that he is important to you, you can teach him a little bit about God’s love.