Father, as I set my mind on time with You, I have wrapped up preparation for a wedding ceremony that will take place in just a few short days. It will be a joyous time and even now I pray for this young couple that Your hand would be upon them in a mighty way, guiding, directing, protecting and sustaining. Amen.
Luke 4:1-13 (<<click to read the passage)
Quite often God brings multiple things to mind when I read through a particular passage. I have addressed two from this record of Jesus’ temptation in the wilderness. God led me in writing both posts but even when I sat down to write the first one, I felt that I needed to write this one.
Every time Jesus was tempted in this passage, how did He respond? He quoted Scripture! In Paul’s epistle (letter) to the Ephesians, he spoke of followers of Jesus putting on the full armor of God (Ephesians 6:10-18). Most pieces are defensive in nature – a helmet, breastplate, shield, etc. But he also admonishes us to “take the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.” v.17 (NLT) and that, my friends, is not a defensive piece of armor but an offensive one! We protect ourselves with the other pieces but with God’s Word, we fight!
Read this passage from Hebrews 4:12 (AMP),
For the word of God is living and active and full of power [making it operative, energizing, and effective]. It is sharper than any two-edged sword, penetrating as far as the division of the soul and spirit [the completeness of a person], and of both joints and marrow [the deepest parts of our nature], exposing and judging the very thoughts and intentions of the heart.
Just processing that first line is amazing! When we open our Bibles, we tend to see ink on paper. But it is, oh, so much more than that! The words before us are God’s words! And we do not serve a dead God or an absent God or a disinterested God! We serve a God who is very much alive and active in every aspect of our lives! The only reason He may not be is that we have held Him at arm’s length. We must welcome Him to be active in our lives – that is an aspect of the free will that we are granted by our Creator.
So like God Himself, His words are very much “living and active and full of power [making it operative, energizing, and effective].” It is like nothing else! In our finiteness, we do not have the ability to replicate the effect.
How many times do we read through a passage and we get the same thing out of it? But then we read it once more and – KAPOW! – something new, something fresh, something impacting comes out of it! It is alive! And coming into contact with it forever changes us!
The writer of Hebrews compares it to being “sharper than any two-edged sword”. I find it interesting that in the notes of the Amplified Bible it says that, “In addition to “sword,” the word in Greek was used…for the knife (scalpel) used by a surgeon.”
The word of God slices to the core of the issue in our lives and again when we come in contact with it, it forever changes us. And it just popped into my head but I would say that we are changed on a spiritually molecular level. The very core of who we are is changed!
Lord Jesus, may we devour Your word. May it fill us, heart, soul, and mind. May we pursue it changing us on a spiritually molecular level! Amen.
Dec 9th, 2019, Mon, 7:18 pm
