No Other Theme Awakens My Song

In an obscure verse at the end of the gospel of John there is a verse tucked away. It is are power packed truth. In all my decades of following Jesus I have never heard a preacher preach on it. I cannot say I have ever read any author address the subject either. I have only used it as a support verse while preaching or teaching some other subject. The verse is shocking in nature and scope. It is worth our serious studious consideration today. 

John 21:25 (NASB)
²⁵  And there are also many other things which Jesus did, which if they *were written in detail, I suppose that even the world itself *would not contain the books that *would be written. 

Let that sink in. In the four gospels we have multitudes of stories about the teachings and miraculous works of Jesus. How He healed the sick and infirmed. How He cast out demons from the possessed. How He loved the unlovely and tamed the untamable. I have preached for three decades and I have not nearly exhausted all the stories and teachings of Jesus contained in the gospels. I spent the better part of two years once preaching through the book of Luke. So much material. Jesus is such a grand theme.

Then I read John 21:25. First, there are many other things that Jesus did. We only have recorded some of the things He did. Not all. My mind wonders about all the other encounters with people He had. The loving interactions. The other miracle interventions in people's lives. A fascinating mental journey. 

Then the most mind boggling thought that if all these Jesus stories were recorded in detail, the earth could not contain all the books that could be written. John did not say the libraries. He said the whole earth.

 In my office here at Spring Creek my shelves are filled with books. So much so I have no more room for anymore. Yet in our home in Runaway Bay I have nearly as many other books there to be transported here when we sell our house. I will just have to stack them on the floor. I have read many of these thousands of books but not all of them. I often look at the volumes and sigh in despair that I cannot read fast enough to get through them all. It is one of the great frustrations of my life. I slowly work through one after another. These are just a few thousand books in my personal library.

 I think of the great libraries I have visited in my life. The Kurth Memorial Library in my hometown of Lufkin, TX. It was there I fell in love with reading taking after grandmother who always had a book in her hands is she a free moment. She ever read as she cooked. She passed that love of reading to me. The Howard Payne University library. The huge Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary library. I spent hours in each of them surrounded by tens of thousands of books. None of those, and all of them combined, could not contain all the details of the work of Jesus in His earthly ministry. 

Those libraries pale in comparison to the largest. The Library of Congress contains 170 million items. Even that massive place could not contain all the works of Jesus if they were written down. 

So I say today that no other theme awakens the song in my soul like He does. The more I seek Him the more the song of my soul is awakened. The more I encounter Him the more I long to exalt Him. The more I meditate on Him the louder the song sounds in my heart. The more I follow Him the greater the crescendo of the chorus that beats inside me. 

Jesus is the theme that brings me to life. He is the subject I most long to study. He is the person I desire to know the most. He is the passion and desire of my life. He is the one I crave. The more I do these things the more the volume is cranked up in the song of my soul. 

For decades I drifted through life without a song of my soul. I exalted football. I lived and breathed for football pursuing that dream of playing all the way up to college. My soul never awakened to sing football. Nor making money. Nor the purchase of anything. It was not until I met Jesus in October of 1983 that the song of my soul awakened. It is louder now than it has ever been. 

To think that I only know a thimble full information about Jesus only makes me want to assiduously devote myself to the pursuit of Him all the more. The theme of Jesus awakens a never ending song in my soul that I cannot silence. Each note, each lyric, each beat, reverberates deep in the chambers of soul. It is the song of the redeemed. Sung by millions of believers around the world. I hope He has awakened the song of your soul as well. Sung by a grateful choir of those awakened. Keep singing souls. Keep praising Jesus. He is the only worthy theme to awaken the songs of our souls.