Over the next couple of weeks or so I’ll be on vacation. While I’m gone I’ve felt that I should repost some of my most read articles that I feel are important. Some of you have been following me long enough to have read them already. If so, my prayer is that they will again be a blessing to you.
In many of my posts, I talk about the relationship between the Word of God and the Scripture. The Bible is the written Word of God. But we also need to hear a Word from the Holy Spirit. This is where the power of God intersects with our lives.
I want to write about how the Word of God relates to us. The Bible teaches that we must correctly handle the Word of Truth. In order to do that I must be studying the Scripture – the written record of God’s Word – so that I can handle the Word I receive from God today.
In this way the word of the Lord spread widely and grew in power.
Acts 19:20
The Bible uses many terms in relation to the Word of God. It uses language such as spread, increased, grew, reached and multiplied. In the above verse, we’re told how. The verse says in this way. If you read through this nineteenth chapter of the Book of Acts you’ll get a taste for the effects of the Word.
We see the gifts of tongues and prophecy being manifested. There was boldness in preaching. Handkerchiefs and aprons that touched Paul were taken to the sick and they were healed. Demonic spirits were confronted and expelled. There was widespread repentance such that a group of new believers burned the equivalent of $5,000,000 worth of satanic sorcery books.
That’s the way the Word of God is described as growing. Literally, the above verse says that the Word became a force to be reckoned with. The Word of God is alive and it grows. That’s the aspect that I discussed in a series of posts. For that original series, click here.
For you have been born again, not of perishable seed, but of imperishable, through the living and enduring word of God.
1 Peter 1:23
We’ve been saved by the living Word of God. That Word is a seed that’s growing inside of us. It will never decay or diminish. It’s there forever.
Somewhere along the line, somebody spoke God’s Word to you. It doesn’t matter whether they used the Bible or not – you heard a Word from God that changed your life.
It might have been a Bible verse, a word of prophecy, or a statement of divine truth. Either way, it grew inside of you, and eventually, you received Jesus Christ and were saved.
That’s how the Word of God starts its work in you. The fact that you’ve established Christ as your Lord and Savior is proof that the Word has taken residence in you. Now, what we do with that seed is up to us.
Question: What was the Word of God that brought salvation into your life?
© 2021 Nick Zaccardi
The Spirit and the Word 