I
recently saw an advertisement for a high school with a great academic and
social responsibility track record. Some of their curriculum highlights were
quite impressive—trying to be responsive to the life needs of people, and not
just programs to get a student to pass a standardized test. What caught my eye
was the course called Writing for Change—designed
to develop the student’s writing skill and is built around the concept of
the power of words to change the world.
As
a writer, that phrase, the power of
words to change the world, certainly caught my eye. When I see Gen Z-ers or
many of the Gen Y-ers today who can’t even read cursive (or what we used to
call just plain, old handwriting), I don’t know if it is due to the No Child
Left Behind nonsense which has left many children behind because of too much federal
government intrusion into states’ domain, unfunded federal mandates causing
undue financial hardship on local and state governments, or too much emphasis
on standardized testing and rigid teacher qualifications, i.e. “teach to the
test.” And its replacement, the Every Student Succeeds Act, isn’t much better. (
A staggering number of complaints about this Act were received by the
Department of Education before it was implemented.). But I am impressed that
there is a high school that has a class on the power of words to change the
world.
Isn’t
that what God did and don’t you think that that is what He would have us do
today while there is still time?
Even
the world recognizes the power of words.
“Throughout human history, our greatest leaders and
thinkers have used the power of words to transform our emotions, to enlist us
in their causes, and to shape the course of destiny. Words can not only create
emotions, they create actions. And from our actions flow the results of our
lives.” Tony Robbins (Tony Robbins--American author of self help books, maker of
infomercials, entrepreneur, philanthropist and life coach.)
“Your word is the power that you have to create; it is
a gift.” Don Miguel Ruiz (A Mexican author and New Age thinker who focuses on ancient
teachings to achieve spiritual enlightment.)
“There is something about words. In expert hands,
manipulated deftly, they take you prisoner. Wind themselves around your limbs
like spider silk, and when you are so enthralled you cannot move, they pierce
your skin, enter your blood, numb your thoughts. Inside you they work their
magic.” Diane Setterfield (A British
author, who is a New York Times No. 1 bestselling author.)
“There is power in words. What you say is what you
get.” Zig Ziglar (Former motivational
speaker and bestselling author.)
“Words: So innocent and powerless as they are, as
standing in a dictionary, how potent for good and evil they become in the hands
of one who knows how to combine them.” Nathaniel Hawthorne (19th Century, East Coast custom house
inspector, and well known author of books such as The Scarlet Letter and
The House of the Seven Gables.)
“Words are containers for power, you choose what kind
of power they carry.” Joyce Meyer (Well
known Christian evangelist and bestselling author.)
While some readers may argue about
my choice of authors for the above quotes, there are literally hundreds from
which I could have chosen.
Later...
My wife and I are at the Jersey
Shore this weekend. I’m looking out the dining room window at the darkening
sky—the sun has set and the pastel pinks, grays, and Robin’s egg blue sky and
clouds are beginning to fade; although where the sun dropped below the horizon
the clouds are still fiery reds and oranges. The dead grass of the marsh is a
dirty, dark brown in this light. The remaining light is being reflected off the
mud flats of low tide and is a steel silver. The incoming tide hasn’t reached
the marsh flats yet, but it too is a steel silver out in the bay.
My
thoughts have been captured by those eight words: the power of words to change the world. If the world thinks of
words in the manner as the quotes above, what does God think of words?
I will worship
toward Your holy temple,
And praise Your name
For Your lovingkindness and Your truth;
For You have magnified Your word above all Your name. Psalm 138:2 NKJV (bolding is mine)
And praise Your name
For Your lovingkindness and Your truth;
For You have magnified Your word above all Your name. Psalm 138:2 NKJV (bolding is mine)
Earlier, God had said to Moses:
13 Then Moses said to God, “Indeed, when I come to the children of Israel
and say to them, ‘The God of your fathers has sent me to you,’ and they say to
me, ‘What is His name?’ what
shall I say to them?” 14 And God said to Moses, “I AM WHO I
AM.” And He said, “Thus you shall say to the children of Israel, ‘I AM has sent
me to you.’” Exodus 3:13-14
30
minutes or so later...
The eastern sky is now dark, but the
western sky, near where the sun set is still very full of light pinks, blues
and grays, Although painted by the
greatest Artist the world has ever seen, a Monet or a Renoir, 19th century
impressionist painters, would be almost
able to capture that sky on canvas. The red and green lights of the aids to
navigation in the Intercoastal Waterway channel are blinking their warning; but
since this is a February night there are no boats out to heed their warning
flashes There is a crescent moon in
almost now cloudless sky.
Later...
Darkness...with a few causeway
lights shimmering in the distance.
But I digressed. How can God elevate
His word above His name? I remember when that sentence first impacted me. It
was only several years ago. I had read Psalm 138 at least two, if not three
dozen times in my Christian walk. Verse 2 had never really struck me as
important. But at that point in my life I was struggling, wrestling with God, to
get hold of who He really was and to see answers to my prayers, answers to my
questions, from His word. Perhaps some
of you remember the posts Dana and I wrote on the struggles that so often beset
Christians and the wilderness wanderings we all go through:
https://foxholecowboysblog.blogspot.com/2016/08/blog3-part-2-deep-rootedness-continued.html I “talked” to God and my Evangelical Lutheran
minister friend ad nauseam, trying to grasp what He really was saying to me
(and all who call Him Lord and Savior) about the power of, and in, His word.
The internet can be either a help,
or a hindrance. While I was Googling the topic “god’s word above His name,” I
came across a citation that caught my attention. It was a devotional or blog
written by Don Walton, former pastor of New Hope Baptist Church of Zephyrhills,
Florida, on 8/11/11
How sure can we be of what God has said? According to
Psalm 138:2, absolutely sure! In one of the most incredible verses in the
Bible, the Psalmist declares that God “has magnified [His] word above all [His]
name.” In other words, God says He’ll step down as God if he ever fails to do
anything that He has said. No wonder Jeremiah the prophet taught that God is
always “watching to see that [His] word is fulfilled” (Jeremiah 1:12 NIV).
For the life of me, I can’t understand the
embarrassment of contemporary Christians over the Bible. Why should we run from
the rock solid foundation it provides for our lives and homes into the arms of
a politically correct society with a foundation of sand that is as wishy-washy
as the latest fickle public opinion poll? if (sic) you ask me, we should be
proudly and loudly proclaiming the Bible’s immutable truths to a world that is
drowning in the quicksand of relativism.
(I believe Pastor Walton is
definitely on the right track; although I’m going to let my Pentecostal roots
show when I ask—if he believes as he does, why did he leave out in their
statement of faith, among other things the Baptism in the Holy Ghost. Is this
not also God’s word? When did it stop being His word and relevant? See the link
to The Sixteen Fundamental Truths of the Assemblies of God, especially number 7
http://familywc.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/16-Fundamental-Truths.pdf
But I digress...)
19 “God is
not a man, that He should lie, Nor a son of man, that He should repent. Has He
said, and will He not do? Or has He spoken, and will He not make it good? 20 Behold,
I have received a command to bless; He has blessed, and I cannot reverse it.
Num23:19-20
So, what does all this have to do
with those eight words we talked about earlier? Have God’s words changed your
world? Or are your words in the spiritual world like spaghetti thrown against
the wall?
Time for bed... Out on the deck.
Cold, but no wind so the distant lights are now leaving a smooth, path like
reflection on the water. The night sky is clear and the constellation Orion is
almost overhead. It is one of the easier, brighter star groups to pick out with
the three stars of the belt and the sword.
The
next morning...
Almost time to pack up and head for
home. Orion, a hunter in Greek mythology, has a sword hanging from his belt.
But a sword doesn’t help the hunter or warrior if it’s kept in its scabbard. The
same with God’s word. It must be used, taken out, spoken or confessed, and acted upon to do the
job for which I believe God has intended for it. As 21st century,
generally comfortable, American Christians, who, generally, have enough—if not
more than enough—of the modern comforts and expendable income, we don’t really
need to depend on God and on His word. And couple that with what I consider to
be a famine of teaching and messages on the power of His word, His spoken word,
we are either ignorant of its power, afraid of it, consider it beneath us, or
rationalize its usage only for earlier times when the people weren’t so sophisticated.
But what does Paul say?
10 Finally,
be strong in the Lord and in the strength of His might. 11 Put on the full armor of God, so that
you will be able to stand firm against the schemes of the devil. 12 For our struggle is not against [e]flesh and blood, but against the rulers,
against the powers, against the world forces of this darkness, against the spiritual
forces of wickedness in the
heavenly places. 13 Therefore, take up the full armor of
God, so that you will be able to resist in the evil day, and having done
everything, to stand firm. 14 Stand
firm therefore, having girded
your loins with truth, and having put on the breastplate of righteousness, 15 and having shod your feet with the preparation of the gospel of
peace; 16 [f]in addition
to all, taking up the shield of faith with which you will be able to extinguish
all the flaming arrows of the evil one. 17 And take the helmet of salvation,
and the sword of the Spirit, which
is the word of God. Eph 6:10-17
We take confession for granted as Christian’s
in numerous ways, for example when one accepts Christ as Savior we confess His
word:
Because, if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is
Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be
saved. For with the heart one believes and is justified, and with the mouth one
confesses and is saved. Romans 10:9 & 10 ESV
Or, as when James tells us to
confess our sins that we may be healed:
Therefore, confess
your sins to one another and pray for one another, that you may be healed. The
prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working. James 5:16 ESV
Or when we are in some kind of
trouble we cry out to the Lord for help:
19 Then they cried
out to the Lord in their trouble; He saved them out of their distresses. 20 He
sent His word and healed them, and delivered them from their destructions. 21 Let
them give thanks to the Lord for His lovingkindness and for
His wonders to the sons of men! Psalm 107:19-21 NASB
I think most of the readers of this
blog would all not just acknowledge, but heartily agree, that the few above
scriptures have personally changed our individual worlds. But it seems as if we
are satisfied with just a few drops of His blessings and help, rather than the
deluge that I believe he wants for His children and for His children to use for
the rest of their worlds. Twice in the Book of Luke we read how worlds, other
than the disciples’, were changed when Jesus give authority to the 12 closest
to Him and then to the 70 others to go out into communities, the highways and
byways to use that authority to change the worlds’ of others.
Luke 9:1ff When Jesus had called the Twelve together, he
gave them power and authority to drive out all demons and to cure diseases, 2
and he sent them out to preach the kingdom of God and to heal the sick....
6 So they set out and went from village to village, preaching the gospel
and healing people everywhere.
1uke 10:
1 ff NASB Now
after this the Lord appointed seventy others, and sent them in pairs ahead of
Him to every city and place where He Himself was going to come. 2 And He was saying to them...
therefore beseech the Lord of the harvest to send out
laborers....9 and heal those in it who are sick, and say to
them, ‘The kingdom of God has come near to you.’
13 “Woe
to you, Chorazin! Woe to you, Bethsaida! For if the miracles had been performed
in Tyre and Sidon which occurred in you, they would have repented long ago, sitting
in sackcloth and ashes. 14 But it will be more tolerable for Tyre and Sidon
in the judgment than for you.
To me, it seems like in much of
today’s Christian world, the focus is spent on teaching and preaching about Jesus
response to the seventy ( 19 “Behold, I have given you authority to tread
on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy, and nothing
will injure you. 20 Nevertheless
do not rejoice in this, that the spirits are subject to you, but rejoice that your
names are recorded in heaven.” Lk 10:19,20 NASB)
rather than how they excitedly returned and told Jesus of the miracles that
took place through their ministry. Yes, if a person’s name is not recorded in
heaven in the Lamb’s book of life, it doesn’t matter what miracles might be
done. But once our salvation is secure, we need to go to our worlds and be like
the seventy and in Jesus name confess His word and labor to see Him work the
miracles I believe He wants to do and bring the blessings He wants to give; His
words changing the world.
Oh, I forgot about the HVAC man who
is coming this morning to look at our heating and air conditioning system. Got
to sign off. I’ve had the topic of confession on my heart for a long time so I’ll
pick this up in another post. As outlandish
as this may sound, I wonder if there is a theology of confession hidden in
plain sight in God’s word?
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