2 Timothy 3:16 NLT
“All Scripture is inspired by God and is useful to teach us what is true and to make us realize what is wrong in our lives. It corrects us when we are wrong and teaches us to do what is right. God uses it to prepare and equip his people to do every good work.”
Eph. 6:17 NLT
“Take the sword, which is the Word of God.”
We won’t be able to do anything with or for God apart from the empowerment of his Word alive and bursting out of our hearts. The Bible says about itself that it is our only weapon – the Sword of the Spirit which is the Word of God – which cuts through every mountain and challenge we face. It exposes even the deception of our own hearts and minds to reveal Truth and it shows us the way things really are, and who God really is, and it brings us into alignment with God’s kingdom.
Hebrews 4:12 NLT
“For the word of God is alive and powerful. It is sharper than the sharpest two-edged sword, cutting between soul and spirit, between joint and marrow. It exposes our innermost thoughts and desires.”
Sharper than any two-edged sword, it’s living, powerful, and active. Jesus said that he didn’t come to bring peace on the earth, but he came to bring a sword – the Word – and that he was the Word made flesh. When we get in the Book, we learn who Jesus really is, and when we really know Jesus, it will draw us to this Book – because it reveals him. That’s how it works.
The first book in the world to be printed on a printing press was the Bible. Johannes Gutenberg, a German goldsmith and businessman invented the printing press in 1455 for the express purpose of distributing the Bible, the most burned and banned book in the world. Dictators and godless governments are afraid of its power to loosen the people’s dependence on them and grant real freedom that only God can give.
The Bible is illegal in fifty-three countries currently – about 27% of the world (that’s the same percentage that read the Bible in the United States. We often take for granted what we have in abundance). Right now, there are people who go to jail or are killed for even having this Book.
“Then maybe, if we have it at all, we only have one book of the Bible. Maybe only a section of a Bible that was split up among the entire church. Maybe only enough to hide safely, typed out on printer paper and hidden on a top shelf. Or maybe we have an entire Bible, a complete copy for our family. Locked in a drawer, hidden in a mattress. Taken out after dark and read together. It isn’t always safe to read it, but we make the most out of every chance we get. It’s risky enough to own it. Miss an opportunity to read it, and we might have missed our last one.”
“Chinese Christians imprisoned for their faith are memorizing Scripture passages smuggled to them on small pieces of paper because prison guards ‘can’t take what’s hidden in your heart,’ one former prisoner revealed. ‘This is what we needed the most.’ ”– quotes by a persecuted modern Christian in China (Voice of the Martyrs – www.persecution.org). Chinese Christians are still being chased down and persecuted, and cling to their Bibles as their most prized possession.
Psalm 119:72 NLT
“Your instructions are more valuable to me than millions in gold and silver.”
Proverbs 1:7 NLT
“Fear of the Lord is the foundation of true knowledge, but fools despise wisdom and discipline.”
It’s time for us to get back to the Book. It’s the first hyperlinked book with 63,778 cross-references across forty authors, fifteen hundred years, three languages, and tens of thousands of ancient copies all in perfect agreement with one another. It’s constantly and repeatedly being proved to be absolutely accurate.
The existence of Pontius Pilate has long been doubted. Though mentioned by Roman historians as well as Jewish historian Josephus and the Greek writer Philo, many still doubted. Suspicions based on that assumption have been used to cast doubt on the resurrected Messiah until, at an archaeological site at Caesarea Maritima in 1961, a damaged block called “Pilate’s Stone” was found which bears a first-century Roman inscription stating, “Pontius Pilatus, position Prefect of Judea in Reign of Tiberius Augustus.”
We’ve discussed why we desperately need it, how we know we can trust it, and how to engage it in a way that allows us to experience the Life, Power, and Truth in it and the Author of it. Now we will talk about how to put the Bible – God’s Word to use. If it’s really living and powerful, then it should affect and change everything! It’s great if we have a devotional time of reading, where the Bible comes alive and we get excited that God’s speaking to us, but does this Word work itself out in our real life in ways that we see God working through us? – and how does that happen?
Hebrews 1:1-3 NLT
“Long ago God spoke many times and in many ways to our ancestors through the prophets and now in these final days, he has spoken to us through his Son. God promised everything to the Son as an inheritance, and through the Son he created the universe. The Son radiates God’s own glory and expresses the very character of God, and he sustains everything by the mighty power of his command. When he had cleansed us from our sins, he sat down in the place of honor at the right hand of the majestic God in heaven.”
All of his power is locked up in His Word, and by His Word is the same power that created the universe (the word universe literally means a single spoken sentence). We live in God’s “single spoken sentence” – and we have his Word.
Hebrews 4:2-3 NKJV
“…but the word which they heard did not profit them, not being mixed with faith in those who heard it. For we who have believed do enter that rest…”
Mark 7:13 AMPC
“Thus you are nullifying and making void and of no effect [the authority of] the Word of God through your tradition, which you [in turn] hand on. And many things of this kind you are doing.”
The Word contains the same power that raised Jesus from the dead and that created the universe, yet it is rendered useless and ineffective in those who, by stubborn hearts, refuse to mix faith with what God says. Instead, they replace faith with “traditions” (habits, current understanding, and what they already think and believe). God is literally saying that his Word can be rendered null and void in us if we don’t mix it with faith. That’s both powerful and scary.
“Without God, man cannot. Without man, God will not.” – St. Augustine, 396-430 AD
Hebrews 11:6 AMP
“But without faith it is impossible to [walk with God and] please Him, for whoever comes [near] to God must [necessarily] believe that God exists and that He rewards those who [earnestly and diligently] seek Him.”
What made Jesus the most excited in the Gospels was anytime someone came to him and displayed faith, like the woman with the issue of blood, who touched the hem of his garment in faith. What got Jesus more riled up than anything was when anyone had an evil and unbelieving heart or a lack of faith. The most frequent reason he rebuked his disciples was for their lack of faith, or, what he called a hard heart.
The first words the resurrected Jesus spoke were to rebuke his disciples for their lack of faith when they refused to believe Mary Magdalene who came to tell them he was risen from the dead. They lacked the active ingredient of faith that can cause something to explode in our life when God shows up.
What is faith?
Hebrews 11:1-2 AMP
“Now faith is the assurance [title deed, confirmation] of things hoped for [divinely guaranteed], and the evidence of things not seen [the conviction of their reality – faith comprehends as fact what cannot be experienced by the physical senses]. For by this [kind of] faith the men of old gained [divine] approval.”
Faith is what precedes our experiencing God’s blessings in our lives. It’s the sixth sense that detects what is imperceptible to our five natural senses and puts us “on the scent” of it until it bursts into reality as we cooperate with God through the Holy Spirit. It is birthed out of the Word as things begin to be detected by faith, and if we follow it, our eyes will soon see it, our ears will hear it, and we will experience what God has already said. But, if we don’t follow where God is leading us by faith, we will never see, feel, or experience the tangible reality of God’s presence and activity in our lives.
How can we build, grow, and develop our faith?
2 Corinthians 5:7 NKJV
“For we walk by faith, not by sight.”
Romans 10:17 NKJV
“So then faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.”
Real faith is a gift from God that can only be produced by the Word of God and is activated when it takes deep root in our hearts through repetition and humble participation and cooperation with God as He stirs in us. It is rooted in and only produced from God’s Word. It’s believing him – not what we want to believe.
Romans 12:3 NKJV
“…God has dealt to each one a measure of faith.”
God gives us a measure of faith, but the question is, what we will do with it? Will we step out on that small measure and go “from faith to faith”, fueled by His Word, or let unanswered questions put a stop to what God’s trying to do? We have three options when it comes to the faith that God has already given us. We can grow it, neglect it, or decrease it – it’s our choice. God gives us the mustard seed, but we have to plant it.
Hebrews 12:2 NKJV
“Looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.” [Faith sets a divine joy before us that produces endurance.]
Matthew 13:31,32 NKJV
“The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed, which a man took and sowed in his field, which indeed is the least of all the seeds; but when it is grown it is greater than the herbs and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come and nest in its branches.”
It is so critical that we come to the scriptures with a heart that is ready to believe rather than seeking to apply a filter based on our prior experiences or current understanding. We should assume that our understanding needs to be corrected every time we read! We need to be “like a child” as we embrace what we don’t yet understand. Only then can we watch as understanding comes and our experience lines up with God’s Word.
If we read the Bible through our own distorted lens, then faith won’t grow – we’ll just make ourselves more religious. But, if we humble ourselves as we open the Book, and say to God, “My heart is ready to trust You – to believe You. Show me. Reveal Truth to me!” then faith comes. Faith is the “currency of the kingdom”, the conduit of God’s activity in our lives, and grows through corresponding acts of obedience.
James 2:17,26 AMP
“So too, faith, if it does not have works [to back it up], is by itself dead [inoperative and ineffective]…For just as the [human] body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works [of obedience] is also dead.”
Romans 1:17 NKJV
“For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith; as it is written, “The just shall live by faith.”
Faith grows as it is planted in obedience one mustard seed at a time. You can’t be found faith-full without faith that is produced by the Word worked out through obedience. Our goal should be, “Well done, good and faithful servant.” When we read and pray, then God speaks, and faith is sparked. What you do next is what matters most! Real faith is expressed through our words – when The Word becomes our words out of a natural heart overflow – but it’s only after we believe – not before.
Proverbs 16:23 NKJV
“The heart of the wise teaches his mouth, and adds learning to his lips.”
Luke 6:45 NKJV
“…For out of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaks.”
Real faith is the words that come out of our mouths when we’re tired, frustrated, not “on our game,” or trying to show how “Christian” we are. It’s not what we control with our minds, but what leaks out of our hearts. Eventually, our mouth will say what’s really in our heart, and our goal should be for this Book to get in our hearts. The proof is when it begins to leak out of our mouths, even when we’re in peril, in trouble, going through trials, or when we’re afraid.
Isaiah 55:11 AMP
“So will My word be which goes out of My mouth; It will not return to Me void [useless, without result], without accomplishing what I desire, and without succeeding in the matter for which I sent it. [it returns out of your mouth]”
God speaks. It gets in our heart. We believe it, and then it leaks back out of our mouth to him, and he says at that point that it will not return void or without effect. When what we speak is in our heart and it aligns with His Word, then we will see God work and move in our life. God doesn’t expect us to have world-altering, mega-sized faith right now. He expects us to take the measure he’s given us and step out on that in trust and to believe him and His Word!
Prayer
Lord, in Jesus’ name, we’ve heard Your Word, and we understand that You’re looking for those who will believe You and trust You. Right now, we’re asking that You deposit a fresh measure of faith in our hearts and increase our capacity to believe You and trust You. We pray that Your Word would come alive in us – that we would see it activated in our lives as we step out in faith and trust You.
Lord, right now, bring to our remembrance somewhere that You’ve already asked us to step out in faith. Stir it in our hearts that we might choose to obey You and act on it. Lord, we declare, as Your people, that we will not be stagnant and neglect our faith, but we will act on it in obedience because we trust You. Thank You for what You will do in our lives in the coming days as we get in Your Word, and as we step out in faith. Lord, we honor You, and we glorify You, in Jesus’ name. Amen
This is an updated edition of a post originally published on The Bridge
Featured Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay
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