The Living Word

The words I speak to you, they are spirit, and they are life.--God Calling, March 2

 

You are already clean because of the word I have spoken to you (Jn. 15:3).

 

I have made You known to them, and will continue to make you known in order that the love you have for me may be in them and that I myself may be in them (Jesus, praying to His Father on the night before He died--Jn. 17:26).

 

Yesterday, I wrote about the word of God coming to us in power and the Spirit, the way it did to the OT prophets.  When Jesus was in the flesh, His words were Spirit and they were truth; Peter said, "Lord, to whom should we go?  You alone have the words of everlasting life." On the road to Emmaeus, the disciples remarked that their hearts were 'burning within' them as they listened to the words of Jesus explaining the Scriptures to them. 

 

The resurrected Christ is still with us today, and still speaking to us the words of everlasting life, still opening the Scriptures to us.  He did not cease speaking, teaching, healing, and calling when He returned to heaven, but continues the same work today through His Spirit in us.  How blessed are they who hear today the voice of the Lord speaking to them!  Jesus said, "My sheep know my Voice...."  and "He who belongs to God hears what God says.  The reason you do not hear is that you do not belong to God" (Jn. 8:47).

 

It seems to me that we either treat Jesus Christ as a historical personage who lived and died 2000+ years ago and who was a wise teacher whose words were preserved by His disciples -- or we believe that He lives today and continues His mission on earth.  It is the Holy Spirit who brings life to the words of the Gospel, who opens our minds and hearts to hear the voice of Jesus therein.

 

I think it is up to us to open the Gospel and begin reading, studying the words of Jesus.  But that is not the end of the story.  At the same time, we must open our hearts and minds to receive the living word of the Lord as He speaks to us.  And the speaking may not be at the same time we are reading.  When we read, we are filling the storehouse of our minds with words that can be later retrieved by the Spirit to instruct and lead us.  We are learning the language of the Spirit when we read -- so that when He speaks, we know His voice.

 

Here is an example:  Several years ago, I began work on a project that I knew would take me at least 3 years, if not more.  I was working in conjunction with a friend of mine on a book.  But as I worked, I grew more and more uneasy, though I could not have told you why.  Then one day, the word of the Lord came to me: Do not be unequally yoked with unbelievers.  Instantly, I recognized the words as those of Paul to the Corinthians (2 Cor. 6:14), and I began to understand my feelings of uneasiness.  The friend I was working with is one of the most delightful and wonderful people in the world, and we have so much fun together that I had never once thought about the fact that she is not a 'believer.'

We still love getting together and enjoying one another's company, but now -- three or four years after the event -- I finally understand why I was not supposed to be working on that project. 

 

It has caused her untold grief and even loss of income along the way, as she worked on the book with another team of writers after I retreated from the project.  And now that the book has been just recently published, the company has gone out of business and fired all its book reps.  There is no way now to get the book into the market for which it was designed.  My heart grieves for my friend; I wish she herself had heard from the beginning what I heard.

 

In speaking to the captives of Babylon, Isaiah tells them:  Although the Lord gives you the bread of adversity and the water of affliction, your teachers will be hidden no more; with your own eyes you will see them.  Whether you turn to the right or to the left, your ears will hear a voice behind you saying, "this is the way; walk in it" (30:20-21).

 

Some years ago, I read a book called Karl Rahner: Mystic of Everyday Life.  Rahner is the most recognized theologian of the 20th century, and he said that people complain that God has never spoken to them.  Rahner does not believe it; he thinks God is always speaking but we are not always listening.  The Book of Job says, "Who endowed the heart with wisdom or gave understanding to the mind?" (38:36) and this also:

Why do you complain to him

that he answers none of man's words?

For God does speak -- now one way, now another --

though man may not perceive it.

 

In a dream, in a vision of the night,

when deep sleep falls on men

as they slumber in their beds,

he may speak in their ears

and terrify them with warnings,

to turn man from wrongdoing

and keep him from pride,

to preserve his soul from the pit

his life from perishing by the sword....(33:12-18).

 

If we could only believe, really believe, that God wants to direct us, teach us, guide us, we might learn to hear His voice speaking in our hearts:  Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding; In all your ways acknowledge Him, and He will direct your paths (Proverbs 3:5-6).  God speaks not only through the words of Scripture, but to the very moment in which we live today.  I think it would be an eye-opening experience to collect stories from men and women who have heard, in one way or another, the Voice of God speaking to them and directing their path.