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The Word of God is a living thing, not like our words, which
amount to hot air, but the very power of The Almighty, the
throbbing pulse of the Universe. The preincarnate Christ was The Logos, "The Word", even before He entered into an eternal union with the man, Jesus. He is The Creator. All things that are, or ever were, or ever will be, were created "by the Word of His power". That infinite power has been reduced to writing for our sakes, in the Holy Bible. Not that the power of God is in the paper and ink, but as those principles and concepts are deposited in the soul of the believer, filled with the Holy Spirit, they have great power, the power to change our lives, and change the course of history. For this purpose God has given us "the mind of Christ", that He may work His will through the agency of man, just as He did in recording the Word through the human authors. Every word of scripture is "God breathed". When we think of power we think of spectacular feats, great armies, giant machines. But God has issues to deal with in the application of His power that we do not. When a carpenter drives a nail he swings the hammer with the greater part of his strength. But if God wielded the hammer He would do so with great finesse and self-control, for even a modicum too much of His strength would shatter the wood, and what would be accomplished? Just so, God's power in our midst is invisible for the most part. Many of the wonders He works we interpret as coincidence, or the result of human contrivance. Like, for example, the deliverance of the British Army at Dunkirk. For the sake of the unenlightened; the entire British Army was positioned at Dunkirk, during WWII, with their backs to the sea. Guderian, the brilliant Reich Marshall, and Hitler's commander of his Panzer forces, recognized a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, the chance to smash the British in one titanic stroke. He was speeding toward Dunkirk when Hitler suddenly ordered a halt. To this day there is no rational explanation for Hitler's decision. In the interim, the British people, just across the English Channel, accomplished perhaps one of the most heroic rescues of all time. Every craft, from the size of a schooner, to a dinghy, set sail for the coast of Europe, and in just over 24 hours they ferried the British and American forces to safety across the water. It could very well be that Hitler's fatal mistake on that occassion cost him the war. It was, of course, the hand of God that intervened in our behalf. It's arrogant of us to suppose that we can utter scripture and invoke the power of God to conform to our interest or designs. However, this is precisely what takes place when we stand on the truth amidst the challenges of this life. God honors His Word, and when we utter the truth in answer to a lie, or abide in the truth when others fall away, as in the support for our President in the Iraq War, then the very power of God comes to bear. It's an awsome thought that the latent dynamics of the written Word, when it is rooted in our souls, becomes the Person of God, Himself, within us. |