I love to listen to The Message version of The Holy Bible app first thing in the morning. I know my Mom would not approve because to her the only true Word of God was the King James, but even though I have read the Bible several times through I still gain so many new insights by listening to this version:
“A student doesn’t get a better desk than her teacher. A laborer doesn’t make more money than his boss. Be content—pleased, even—when you, my students, my harvest hands, get the same treatment I get. If they call me, the Master, ‘Dungface,’ what can the workers expect?”
Matthew 10:24-25 MSG
Today I was listening to Matthew and realized where our “sticks and stones” reference comes from, maybe most people already know this and maybe I did at one point also but it was highlighted freshly today as I listened. Check it out! As true today as then…whatever mean things people say about us, however they try to paint us in society, however they criticize, they cannot touch our souls which belong to Jesus. Words can never hurt me, meaning they cannot affect me at that deepest core of who I am. On the surface, sure. Have teenagers? They can say some pretty hurtful things. So can friends, (with friends like that…), colleagues, anyone jostling you for a place in business or society, Christian or otherwise, but words can never hurt you, never move you from your eternal place with Christ Jesus.
Notes From Real Life 