It can be an interesting and enriching Bible study to consider the many verses that contain the words “The Lord is my....” followed by words that tells us of a way in which God can meet a particular area of need in our lives. An example that comes readily to mind is “The Lord is my shepherd”. From this phrase and from what follows we learn that God wants to be our provider, our guide and our comfort in trial. God intended us to find in Him a sufficient supply for all we need to live a fulfilling, purposeful and satisfying Christian life in the here and now (2 Peter 1:3, Ephesians 1:3) and an assurance of eternal life in the world to come (John 5:24).
At the outset we need to emphasise the personal nature of the phrase we are considering. For example, we accept the fact that the Lord Jesus is a Saviour, in that He died for the sins of the world, but God wants us to understand that Jesus is a personal Saviour and to believe that “He loved ME and gave Himself for ME (Galatians 2:20 – emphasis added). There can be a world of difference between religion and a personal relationship with God through our Lord Jesus.
Let us think about our first “The Lord is my....., which is found in Psalm 27:1. We read “The Lord is my light and my salvation, whom shall I fear”? Think of the Lord being “my light”. Becoming a Christian is described as turning “from darkness to light” (Acts 26:18). The Lord Jesus tells us “I am the light of the world; he that followeth me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life” (John 8:12). In 1 Peter 2:9 God reminds the believer that “He has called you out of darkness into His marvellous light” and in 2 Corinthians 4:4 we read that “the god of this world has blinded the minds of them that believe not, lest the light of glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them” and in verse 6 we have another delightful statement, “For God who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, has shined into our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ”. How does one pass from darkness into light? By simple faith I believe the promises of God’s Word and “the entrance of your word gives light, it gives understanding to the simple” (Psalm 119:130). The man who invites the Lord Jesus to come into his heart willowHow be able to sing with the hymn writer “I have light in my soul for which long I had sought, since Jesus came into my heart”.
Jesus describes His followers as being the “light of the world: (Matthew 5:14) and He asks us to “let your light so shine before men that they may see your good works and glorify your Father which is in heaven (Matthew 5:16). The Lord also asks us to “walk in the light” (1 John 1:7), which means being obedient to His word and His will: in so doing we shall enjoy His fellowship and the cleansing from all sin.
Our next “The Lord is my....” is in Psalm 27:1). It says “The Lord is my salvation”. What does the word “salvation” or “saved” mean? One meaning of the word is to be delivered”. At His birth, it was announced that the Lord Jesus would “save His people from their sins” (Matthew 1:21) and believers were told that they had been declared not guilty and “saved from wrath through Him” (Romans 5:9).
The central fact in human history is that a loving and merciful God devised a means whereby sinful men and women could be forgiven of their sins, be made acceptable to God and become His sons and daughters. God is not willing that any person should perish, but that all should come to repentance (2 Peter 3:9). There is hope for all men in the Lord Jesus. He said “I am the door, by Me, if any man enter in, he shall be saved (John 10:9). Surely there is nothing in life more important than to have an assurance that one is saved. The man or woman who comes humbly to God and trusts in the Lord Jesus as a personal Saviour can find peace and the “gift of God which is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord” (Romans 6:23). “For by grace are you saved through faith, and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God” (Ephesians 2:9). What a priceless gift, and what a joy to be able to say “The Lord is my light and my salvation”!
This article was written by Pastor Geoffrey Davies. He is a frequent contributor to this column. He lives in Melbourne, Australia, where he pastored a church for over twenty-five years. For many years, he has travelled widely, continuing his ministry of encouragement and Bible teaching.
