The Word of His Power Part VIII - Live

Finally we arrive at the point where, as they say, “the rubber meets the road.”  Once we have listened to the Word of the Lord and have received it, now it is time to Live it.  Honestly, this is where we fail to launch most of the time.  This really is where our greatest challenges lie.  Listening to the Word and receiving the Word gets us into the right starting gate, but there comes a moment when we must get out of the gate and onto the track.

Some of the greatest moments in Biblical history never actually materialized, because people failed to live out the Word that they had heard and received.

• What if Peter had continued to live in Jesus’ word to “come” to Him walking on the water, rather than living in the wind, and sinking?
• On the occasion of 5,000 (plus) hungry people, what if the disciples had lived out Jesus’ word “You give them something to eat!” rather than living by the “bottom-line” (5 loaves and two fish)? 
• What if the entire generation of Hebrews delivered from Egypt had received and lived in God’s word of the Promised Land, rather than living (and dying!) in the wilderness?
• What if Adam and Eve had lived in God’s word not to eat the forbidden fruit, rather than living in the lie of the Devil?

We’ll never know, because these “great moments” in Biblical history never happened.  

What about a great moment of Christian history in our day?

• What if Hill Point Church chooses to live in God’s Word to “Be fruitful and multiply, grow, expand, increase” into a multi-cultural, multi-generational, thriving and flourishing spiritual house, rather than simply consenting to live in the familiarity of the past?

I cannot say we’ll never know, because the jury is still out on this great moment of Christian history.  “As long as it is still called ‘Today,’” we still have the opportunity to live in God’s word today! (Heb. 3:13)

Living God’s word requires that we reach out in faith, lay hold of what God has said and pull it down into our time and space existence.  It requires that we start speaking out in agreement with our Heavenly Father who “calls into being that which does not exist.”  It requires that we stop being “merely hearers” of the word, and intentionally become “doers of the word.”  It requires that we orient everything we are, everything we have and everything we represent around what God has spoken - even in the full knowledge that the “suddenly” moment of His acting upon His word is yet future.  It requires that we live unwavering in “times of trials” that test our resolve to hold on to His word.  It requires a tenacity to keep moving forward according to His word, even when everything around us in the natural is telling us otherwise.

This is the essence of faith.  This is that for which the ancients were commended: Living in the “Land of Unknown” with absolute certainty and unshakeable conviction.  This is not the absence of fear, but rather the presence of faith governing our fears.  This is not about a lack of obstacles, but rather an abundance of belief that casts them into the sea.

Living God’s word is not a “super-spiritual” pilgrimage best left for the talented, the educated and the professionals.  On the contrary, Jesus taught “unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven” and “the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these."   Lightweights in the natural realm can be heavyweights in the Kingdom, and heavyweights in the natural realm can often be lightweights in the Kingdom.

“Therefore everyone who hears these words of Mine and acts on them, may be compared to a wise man who built his house on the rock.  And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and slammed against that house; and yet it did not fall, for it had been founded on the rock.” (Matt. 7:24-25)

Pastor Scott   

"The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit, be with you all." (2 Cor 13:14)