Tom's Message: Word(s) of the Year
Hope you’re having a day filllllllled with thankfulness and praise!!
Hey, before I go any further, I need y’all to know that when I type these Friday things I am not assisted or aided by artificial intelligence in any way.
Even if I wanted to, I don’t really know what it is.
I thought artificial intelligence was when you guess right on a multiple choice test when you really didn’t know the answer!
Anyway, it’s a word I hear a lot lately. I bet it’ll be the “Word of the Year” for 2023.
Did you know that every year there is the “Word of the Year”?
I think it’s just a new-ish word that you hear over and over and they give it an award just before everyone gets sick of hearing it over and over too many times!
For example, in 2005, the word of the year was “plutoed”. That’s when you used to be a planet just like Jupiter and Mars but you got demoted.
In 2016, it was “dumpster fire” (which like “artificial intelligence” is two words!)
In 2018 in Great Britain, the word was “nomophobia”- the fear of not having enough battery for your cell phone!
“Yikes!!”…
or…
“Ahhh!!”, depending how you feel about your pocket ringing all the time!
In fact, in 2012 the WOTY (“Word of the Year”…I just made that up!) was “phantom vibration syndrome”- the feeling that the phone in your pocket is vibrating even when it ain’t!
Each country seems to have its own WOTY.
In 2017, In Australia, the word was “Kwaussie”, a person with New Zealand and Australian citizenship!
If you have your Australian citizenship, you could go vote and buy a “democracy sausage” (Aussie WOTY 2016), a braut they sell at polling places!
In the unsettling times we’re living…
and as we read and watch all the things that have caused all of us so much sorrow…
and for many of us, so much anxiety…
there are words that we are hearing with more and more frequency.
I always ask myself, “Are these words we read of in God’s Word?”
Are these “apocalyptic” times?
“Apocalypse” is word that means “an unveiling”.
And the “Apocalypse of Jesus Christ”,
(which is only used one time in the Book of Revelation, in the very first verse)
will be the most wonderful time of all!
When “we will see Him as He is!”
And “He will be our Shepherd and lead us to springs of living water”! (Revelation 7.17)
Are we “in the Last Days”?
Well, actually…yes.
According to Hebrews 1:2, we have officially been in the “last days” for about 2000 years, since the very first Christmas day in Bethlehem!
Even though the word “Antichrist” and the word “rapture” are never used in the Book of Revelation even one time…
ya wanna know a word that’s used in it alot?
A word that is used in Matthew (the Gospel of the King) only five times…
and that’s used in Luke three times…
and that’s used in the Book of Acts twice…
the word “throne”…
from where the God of Love builds and rules over His Kingdom...
and over all things...
and Who cares for, shepherds and guards His own…
even while the world comes apart…
is used 37 times!!
And the One Who sits on that throne with the Father Above…
is called the “Lamb”…
He is called this...
in the Gospel of John, three times…
in the Gospel of Mark, one time…
in the Gospel of Luke, two times…
in the Gospel of Matthew, zero times…
in 1 Peter, one time…
and in the Book of Revelation…
which tells us of the God of Love Who builds and rules over His Kingdom...
and over all things...
and Who cares for, shepherds and guards His sheep…
even while the world comes apart…
the word "Lamb" is used...
31 times!!
May “the Lamb in the midst of the Throne”…
be the “Word of the Year” in your heart…
this year and every year…
until He comes again!