God Speaking

“So is my word that goes out from my mouth; it will not return to me empty, but will accomplish what I desire…”

(Isaiah 55: 11)

Sending out words is vastly different as to the way it was when I was young. Handwritten letters were personal methods of communicating and for more official letters, a typewriter was used. Today the quickest way of getting your message across seems to be the most important point of any communication from emailing, texting to Twitter and Facebook. My sister and I played a little experiment this last few weeks to go back to sending a letter to each other. She lives in Australia and I live in Canada and while chatting on the phone to each other we were sharing some favourite recipes with each other. We both decided we would like to have each other’s recipe to try so my sister offered to send me hers by mail and I decided to send mine to her. Just for fun we posted them on the same day and waited to see which country had the best postal service. I received hers in exactly 7 days she is still waiting for mine 12 days later!!!

Repeatedly in Scripture we read of the importance of knowing God’s word and spreading the good news of the power in his word;

“Is not my word like fire,” declares the Lord, “and like a hammer that breaks a rock in pieces?” (Jeremiah 23: 29)

We tend to forget the incredible power of God’s word and sometimes fall into the error of thinking the Bible is just words written in a book. The Psalmists considered them so important, they wanted to absorb God’s words into their very being, the centre of the human heart;

“I have hidden your word in my heart that I might not sin against you.” (Psalm 119: 11)

Again, they so want to absorb them and write about such powerful words they relate this desire as to eating his words

“How sweet are your words to my taste, sweeter than honey to my mouth!” (Psalm 119: 103)

So how do we send God’s word out so that it will accomplish what he desires?

Firstly, we need to know his word as deeply as the Psalmists, so all our actions are governed by that inner knowledge and guidance we get from keeping his word alive within us. This also needs a constant refreshing by reading and praying his word back to him.

When we are constantly spending time with the Lord and his word we are blessed by producing fruit which in turn blesses others and sends out his word in a mighty way. Somebody once remarked, people don’t need a sermon to find out what it means to be a Christian, they just need somebody demonstrating what the Lord’s love produces. Paul aptly describes how to do that in his letter to the Galatians;

“But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self control. Against such things there is no law.” (Galatians 5 :22 – 23)