God's Word Archives • Knowing God and His Ways

July 18, 2022July 7, 2022

Title: #19 – God Is Watching Over His Word to Perform It

In Jeremiah 1:12 we see the importance of God’s Word to God himself

A few years ago I took a course on how to reach goals. One of the most important takeaways from the class was the necessity of keeping attention on goals.

That is nothing new, of course, but the stress that the instructor placed on it and the variety of ways suggested to do it made an impression on me. He taught that I should have in my schedule a weekly appointment to review my goals and my progress. I should also have a monthly, quarterly, and annual appointment. Furthermore, I should post goals in unmissable places like bathroom mirrors and kitchen cabinets.

I found that the course instructor is right. When you keep goals at the center of your attention, the likelihood of reaching them increases.

Jeremiah 1:12

This is a faint illustration in a fallible human way of what God does in a perfect way. God told his prophet Jeremiah, “I am watching over my word to perform it” (Jeremiah 1:12).

Humans have limited ability to perform most things and to keep many things in their attention. God, on the other hand, has infinite power to do anything he has decided to do, and he can maintain an infinite number of things in his attention. He does not need to put yellow sticky notes on the arms of the throne in heaven to remind himself what to do in your life.

God’s declaration in Jeremiah 1:12, “I am watching over my word to perform it,” tells us two things about God’s relationship with his own words.

1. How God feels about his words

God’s words are infinitely important to him. “You have exalted above all things your name and your word” (Psalm 138:2).

When a woman’s hair is important to her, it affects her conduct. She looks in the mirror often. She spends lots of money at the salon and time in the bathroom in the morning getting her hair just right. When a man’s wardrobe or muscles are important to him, it affects his conduct in similar ways. Whatever is most important to us dramatically affects how we spend our time, attention, money, and energy.

Jeremiah 1:12 shows us that God’s Words are of ultimate importance to him. Ultimate importance. Ultimate, maximum importance. We cannot conceive how important his words are to him because even the most conscientious and honest souls on earth cannot begin to respect their own words the way God respects his own.

That is because he is perfectly truthful and absolutely faithful. There are no stray words from God. No filler words. No throwaway words. And no unintended, accidental words or forgotten words. He cannot lie, cannot prevaricate, cannot deceive.

God comes to humanity with a breathtaking forthrightness and says it as it is, boldly, clearly. His every word is precisely chosen, like the words of a poet, only infinitely more so. God knows every sense of every word of every language in heaven and on earth. He speaks his words knowing past, present, and future, knowing everything about everyone and all that is.

If words had material weight, one of his words would tip the scales with more weight than all the matter in the universe. One sentence from God placed atop the earth would crush it to powder. “Is not my word…like a hammer that breaks the rock in pieces,” said the Lord to Jeremiah (23:29).

2. What God does with his words

And with these words God makes promises, predicts the future, and creates what will be out of nothing.

Like a wise legislator working his purposes in the world through the crafting of good laws, God works through his righteous words.

As a good lawyer writing a fair contract, God says what he will do and what we can expect.

Like an athlete predicting a victory, God says what he will accomplish.

And like a blacksmith working through his hammer, God works through his all-powerful words.

According to Jeremiah 1:12 God performs his words. He executes his words in his time, in his way, according to his will. His words are his glory. His words display his name. They unfold his wondrous character and divine nature.

The Lord claims, “As the rain and the snow come down from heaven and do not return there but water the earth, making it bring forth and sprout, giving seed to the sower and bread to the eater, so shall my word be that goes out from my mouth; it shall not return to me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose, and shall succeed in the thing for which I sent it.” (Isaiah 55:10–11)

God’s words perform, and God performs his words.

God’s attention on God’s Word

And these are the words in which you put your trust when you pray and believe. Are these words reliable? Are these words worthy of your trust? Can you depend on them?

Yes, he stands behind them infinitely more than the most highly principled business men or women stand behind their guarantee. You can take God’s Word, rightly understood and applied, to the bank.

“I am watching over my word to perform it” (Jeremiah 1:12).

Jeremiah 9:23–24: “Thus says the LORD: ‘Let not the wise man boast in his wisdom, let not the mighty man boast in his might, let not the rich man boast in his riches, but let him who boasts boast in this, that he understands and knows me, that I am the LORD who practices steadfast love, justice, and righteousness in the earth. For in these things I delight, declares the LORD.’” (ESV)

June 27, 2022June 22, 2022

Truth #17 – No Matter What Our Circumstances Say, the Word Of God Will Prove True If We Have Faith

When we walk by faith, we live in two realities.

A few minutes ago I did something many people regard as sheer superstition. Sitting alone in my apartment, I closed my eyes and spoke out loud to a being I cannot see but who I believe is real and able to hear me. We call this activity prayer, and I spoke to God.

When we pray, we show we believe in two realities. We believe in a natural world we can see and discern with our senses, and we believe in an invisible, spiritual reality.

I do many other things that show I believe this spiritual world is real. I give significant amounts of money to Christian organizations. And I read, study, and teach the Bible daily. I stand on the sidewalk and hand out Christian literature.

So I believe the natural world is real, and I believe the invisible, spiritual world is real. And as a result 2 Corinthians 5:7 is true of me: “We walk by faith, not by sight.”

Two realities

Having faith does not mean acting as though the seen world is unreal. It simply means we do things we would not do if we believed only in the things we can see. We believe in two realities, not one.

Moreover, based on God’s Words, we believe in future realities we cannot now see but we are sure will happen. God’s promises are real because they are his eternal plans expressed in his unbreakable words.

For example, two realities were at work in the lives of Abraham and Sarah. One reality was the natural reality of their inability to have children. The other reality was God’s promise to make Abraham the father of people as numerous as the stars in the sky.

One reality was, Abraham did not own any land in Canaan; while the other reality was what God had promised: that Abraham would possess all of Canaan.

God told Abraham he wanted him to live in many ways as though the promised reality was already present. God wanted Abraham to live in the tension of the two realities. Both were real, but only one was manifest in current circumstances.

The tension of two realities

How to manage that tension between two realities is where things can get complicated. At one point in the tension, God told Abram, whose name meant exalted father, that he wanted him instead to use the name Abraham, which meant father of many. So Abram was to conduct daily life using a new name that would be awkwardly ironic to most people. An old man with an old wife with no children was to use a name that suggested he was the father of many.

Consequently whenever Abraham used his new name, there would be some who thought Abram in his old age was losing touch with reality. Can you hear people talking behind Abraham’s back? Have you heard about Abram? It’s so sad. It was painful enough that he had the name exalted father; now he is calling himself father of many! He’s losing his senses.

There were other tensions for Abraham. God told him to live as a sojourner in Canaan. The land would be his someday, but for now Abraham did not own one square inch of it. Nevertheless God commanded him to live there.

God also told him not to regard the firstborn son he had by Sarah’s handmaiden, named Ishmael, as the fulfillment of the promise that he would have many descendants. Although that led to awkward situations, Abraham complied.

Conviction of things unseen

Hebrews 11:1–2 says, “Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. ² For by it the people of old received their commendation.”

These verses show why there can be a difficult tension to navigate for the person of faith. People of faith have perfect assurance and conviction of things no one else can see, things they hope for but that are not yet visibly real. They believe in another reality that current circumstances deny. How do you explain that to others without their thinking you are foolish?

Well, you cannot do it. You have the promise from God; you have the faith in God’s words and so you have another reality; they do not and they likely cannot. At best they might call you a dreamer or a person with vision; at worst, they will think you need to face reality and get on with it, or that you are simply a religious kook.

But that is the life of faith. Notice that Hebrews 11:2 says God commends people of faith who are willing to live in the tension of these two realities. One of the takeaways of Hebrews 11 is God approves of people of faith. He designed the faith life. He wants us to have assurance and conviction based on his words even as others have doubt and disbelief.

Based on God’s invincible words, the person of faith lives in two realities. People without faith are living only in the current reality of natural-world circumstances. The unseen reality makes perfect sense to a person of faith; whereas it is nonsense to others without faith.

Noah the nut case

If anyone understood the tension of two realities it was Noah. Until the rain started falling, he was a delusional old man. He was spending boatloads of money, working long days for decades, building a gigantic boat on dry land. He was preparing for a coming reality—the flood—that God had revealed to him, but which no one else could perceive.

Now that is a tension between two realities. That was hard to navigate and make any semblance of appearing normal to others. In their eyes Noah was wasting time, money, energy, and resources. He was crazy! And what was this nonsense about filling the boat with animals? Can you imagine how hard it was for Noah to invest everything he had in something that was beyond his and others’ experience? Even in retrospect it is hard for us to conceive. How did he do it?

“By faith Noah, being warned by God concerning events as yet unseen, in reverent fear constructed an ark for the saving of his household” (Hebrews 11:7). He did it by faith in God’s Word. The tension of two realities is the inescapable nature of the faith life. The tension of perhaps feeling like a fool and appearing to others as a fool is the nature of the faith life. And the more sensible others are, the more foolish they will think you are.

The current reality is real, but temporary. The coming reality is unseen, but certain. What makes the unseen tangible for the person of faith is God’s Word.

Jesus said, “Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away” (Matthew 24:35).

Jesus said, “The words that I have spoken to you are spirit….” (John 6:63). His words have spiritual reality.

Continued next week

May 16, 2022April 28, 2022

Truth #12 – God’s Word Creates Faith

To increase our faith we must learn to absorb God’s Word in the way that creates faith.

Have you ever dearly wanted something and realized to get it you needed more faith?

That happened to me about four years ago. I came to the settled conclusion the church I serve must have the ability to win converts to Jesus. And for that to happen I myself needed to have the ability to win converts to Jesus. The frustrating truth was, the latter was not happening, though not for lack of effort.

But I knew God wanted it to happen. Luke 19:10 says Jesus “came to seek and to save the lost.” When he ascended to heaven, he gave that mission to his church. So I knew we were missing something. One crucial day James 1:5 convinced me God could give me the wisdom to understand what we were missing and what we could do about it.

But there was a complication. James 1:6, the very next verse, told me that to get that wisdom I must have faith.

How we increase our faith

The situation for which you need faith differs from mine. You may need faith for physical healing. You may need faith to get out of debt and establish your finances or to meet the person who will someday become your spouse or to conceive a child or to succeed in school or on the job or to overcome fear or depression.

Whatever your need, we all need more faith for something, and the good news is we can get it.

To get the wisdom I needed I began memorizing Scriptures about God’s willingness to give wisdom. Over the next year I collected a list of 39 Scriptures. One by one I memorized them and spent slow time pondering each one over and over again. Then I would cycle back and refresh my ability to quote the verses correctly and once again ponder each text one word and phrase at a time.

I have been doing that now for several years, and I now believe in every cell of my bones that God gives me the wisdom I ask for. And slowly I have been learning how to lead others to become followers of Jesus.

Breakthrough

Over the past year my breakthrough came. I know of four people who have responded to my conversations with them and said they wanted to follow Jesus. I assume others have as well, for I have given the gospel to hundreds of people in various ways over the same period. Every month or two I get another insight into how to improve and become more effective in this.

I am certain that over the next year I will lead more people to become followers of Jesus than I did last year. My wisdom and effectiveness will keep growing. Why? Because I believe God’s words concerning his willingness to give me wisdom, and so I keep seeking it and I keep getting it and using it. God’s words have created this settled faith in me.

God’s words create faith as acorns create oak trees.

Romans 10:17

Romans 10:17 says, “Faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ.”

In this verse Paul is describing how saving faith comes about, and he says it comes when lost people hear the message of the gospel, which is “the word of Christ.” The same principle applies to faith in general. Faith comes from hearing the word of God.

Faith needs an object, it needs content, and the object of faith is God and his Word. (Unlike the department store chain with the one-word marketing slogan, “Believe,” which does not specify what to believe, as though all that matters is belief in something or anything.)

Faith increases as we hear, read, and consider the Word of God and humbly and obediently choose to believe it. God’s word creates faith as acorns create oaks.

The unique vitality of divine words

God’s words are not like ordinary human words.

First, like acorns God’s words are alive. Hebrews 4:12 says, “The word of God is living and active...” Living things grow and multiply. Living things are active, like the new leader of an organization who brings fresh ideas, energy, and vision. Scripture pulses with life.

Second, God’s words are spirit. Jesus said, “It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh is no help at all. The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life” (John 6:63). Notice that he did not say his words are spiritual, although that is certainly true. Rather he said his words “are spirit.” He was asserting something about the nature and essence of God’s words. God is spirit (John 4:24), and his words also are spirit. Whatever that means exactly, it suggests why his words are powerful, uniquely life-changing, and able to create faith, why they are living and active.

This sheds light on why God can say, “As the rain and the snow come down from heaven and do not return there but water the earth, making it bring forth and sprout, giving seed to the sower and bread to the eater, so shall my word be that goes out from my mouth; it shall not return to me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose, and shall succeed in the thing for which I sent it” (Isaiah 55:10–11).

It makes sense

As this verse illustrates, God’s words are instrumental in nature, and they hold a place at the center of his relationship with us and the foundation of no less than the universe itself. For example:

Jesus is the Word

John 1:1–2 says, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God.” Verses 14–18 make it clear that “the Word” is Jesus.

In John 14:6 Jesus described himself as “the truth.”

Clearly, if God himself can be described as the Word, then words are fundamental to all reality. It makes sense, then, that words are fundamental to our faith.

God created all things through his words

Genesis 1:3, 6, 9 says, “³ And God said, ‘Let there be light,’ and there was light. … ⁶ And God said, ‘Let there be an expanse in the midst of the waters, and let it separate the waters from the waters.’ … ⁹ And God said, ‘Let the waters under the heavens be gathered together into one place, and let the dry land appear.’ And it was so.”

Likewise for the remaining days of creation. God creates through his verbal commands.

It makes sense, then, that he creates faith in us by his Word.

God exalts his words for the sake of his glory

The Holy Spirit inspired the writer of Psalm 138 to say to God, “you have exalted above all things your name and your word” (v. 2).

The Holy Spirit inspired the writer of Psalm 56 to say three times the refrain that he praised God’s words. “In God, whose word I praise, in God I trust” (v. 4). “In God, whose word I praise, in the LORD, whose word I praise, in God I trust” (vv. 10, 11). And twice the psalmist links his praise of God’s words with his trust in God.

The psalmist’s praise for God’s words inspired his trust in God. God’s word creates the faith that brings God glory.

Takeaway

You need more faith for situations you face. The question is, how badly do you want it? Enough to really knuckle down and work for it for the long haul? To carefully read several chapters of Scripture daily? And to compile verses that pertain to your situation and memorize and meditate on them? To regularly ask God to help you do all this and thereby to increase your faith?

Shifting my analogy: Although it only takes one acorn to create an oak tree, it takes many acorns to feed a squirrel for the winter. The more acorns you squirrel away, the stronger your faith will grow.