THE ONLY GOOD THING
(This was a sermon I heard on "LightSource.com" by Dr. Michael Youssef. I have expanded on it somewhat)
Hebrews 4: 12-13: “For the Word of God is living and active and sharper than any two-edged sword, and piercing as far as the division of soul and spirit, of both joints and marrow, and able to judge the thought and intentions of the heart. And there is no creature hidden from His sight, but all things are open and laid bare to the eyes of Him with whom we have to do.”
The Word of God is not merely words on pages. The Word of God has authority, power and strength. It’s active; it produces fruit. When it enters your heart, it changes your life from inside. The word “sword” in the Greek meaning denotes a knife. The word sword is usually connected to a weapon of war, but as a knife, it can have a slightly different meaning.
1 Peter 1: 23 says we are “born again through the living and enduring Word of God.”
When we read the Word of God consistently, three things will take place.
1. It’s like going for surgery. God stretches us out on His operating table. Just like physical surgery, everything is laid bare. Being in the operating room makes it a time when we are most susceptible to germs. Whenever you read the Word of God, satan is there, the flesh is there and they try to neutralize the effect or impact of God’s Word. He’ll try to distract you, get your attention away from God; he’ll also try to keep you from believing by putting doubt in your mind about what you are reading. He’ll also try to keep the surgery from being effective by infecting you with other thoughts to keep you from understanding what you are reading.
The Word of God is like an X-ray. It reveals who you are, everything about you. As you lay on God’s operating table, He is able to separate fact from fiction, reality from fantasy. A lot of us go through life thinking we are fine, spiritually right, healthy, doing OK and don’t need any help. Then you go to the doctor and he says he has to operate immediately. We argue, “I’m fine.” As long as you compare yourself to others you’re going to feel fine. It’s easy to find someone who is worse off than you are and you compare yourself to them. You know what I mean?
In front of God’s Word, where nothing is hidden from His eyes, even so the surgeon sees the problem and what does he do? Ignore it, sew the patient back up? When things I don’t want to deal with confront me head on, when pride and self-satisfaction hit me in the face, when I’m confronted by His standards, when I’m laid bare before God, I know like Paul that nothing good dwells in me that is in my flesh. I find that the only good thing about me is Jesus Christ in me, the hope of glory.
2. The Word of God cuts us where we need to be cut. No one enjoys surgery. God does surgery in a way that even though it may be painful, when we look back we can say, “Thank God.” He cuts to bring to health. The double-edged sword works in our life; it dissects. It means the Word of God cuts to the bone, penetrates to the deepest recesses of our spiritual being, it misses nothing. It doesn’t divide but goes very deep into every cell of your spiritual body; it stops at nothing until all is brought out in the open and then cuts it away, severing things God wants to separate you from. It is spiritual surgery that only God can perform. When you look at how it “divides”, it points to a part of us that only God can see. Joints hold everything together in the body and marrow produces nourishment through blood production in the bones. Needless to say, the devil doesn’t want you to stay on God’s operating table. God judges my thoughts, activities, every motive, and the secret intentions. The biggest lie of our culture/society is “Do what you feel is right.” Feeling is subjective and totally unreliable. What if two people have opposing feelings? The Word of God sorts out reality from fiction. It says “This is right” or “This is wrong.” People are experts in self-deception. Most of the time we project an image of ourselves that is far from reality. We all try to hide our true self from the public self. We create a double security system to ensure this defensive mechanism, enforced with tons of excuses, explanations when this or that is the way it is, we explain away why we do what we do. The Word of God penetrates all this clutter and the sword begins to cut away these security systems and gets all the way into the vault. It sorts out reality from fiction, what is true from fantasy. It does for us what we cannot do for ourselves.
3. God’s Word heals and restores us. Psalm 41: 4 asks God to be merciful and heal us. Isaiah 57:18-19 the Lord declares that He sees our ways and He will heal us; Jeremiah 30: 17 God promises to heal our wounds and it was for these wounds that Jesus suffered and died for us all. There is no surgeon who would open a patient and not sew him back up in order for the wound to heal and the patient restored into full health and strength. The Word of God puts us back together to health—spiritual health. Psalm 107: 20 tells us that “He sent His Word and healed them and delivered them from their destruction.” It’s not in our nature to hang out with someone who knows everything about you, but God does and we try to hide just like in the Garden when Adam and Eve said they hid because they were afraid because they saw they were naked. Naked before God. He wants to do all this so He can heal us, bless us, and fulfill us, strengthen and satisfy us and pour His grace into our lives. Hebrews 4 continues in verse 16 telling us that we can “draw near with confidence to the throne of grace so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.” O, how we need God’s Word in our lives. Psalm 18: 16-19 shows how God takes us, draws us out of the deep things we get ourselves into, He delivers us. “He rescued me because He delighted in me.” It’s all for the sake of the love that God has for each one of us.
(This was a sermon I heard on "LightSource.com" by Dr. Michael Youssef. I have expanded on it somewhat)
Hebrews 4: 12-13: “For the Word of God is living and active and sharper than any two-edged sword, and piercing as far as the division of soul and spirit, of both joints and marrow, and able to judge the thought and intentions of the heart. And there is no creature hidden from His sight, but all things are open and laid bare to the eyes of Him with whom we have to do.”
The Word of God is not merely words on pages. The Word of God has authority, power and strength. It’s active; it produces fruit. When it enters your heart, it changes your life from inside. The word “sword” in the Greek meaning denotes a knife. The word sword is usually connected to a weapon of war, but as a knife, it can have a slightly different meaning.
1 Peter 1: 23 says we are “born again through the living and enduring Word of God.”
When we read the Word of God consistently, three things will take place.
1. It’s like going for surgery. God stretches us out on His operating table. Just like physical surgery, everything is laid bare. Being in the operating room makes it a time when we are most susceptible to germs. Whenever you read the Word of God, satan is there, the flesh is there and they try to neutralize the effect or impact of God’s Word. He’ll try to distract you, get your attention away from God; he’ll also try to keep you from believing by putting doubt in your mind about what you are reading. He’ll also try to keep the surgery from being effective by infecting you with other thoughts to keep you from understanding what you are reading.
The Word of God is like an X-ray. It reveals who you are, everything about you. As you lay on God’s operating table, He is able to separate fact from fiction, reality from fantasy. A lot of us go through life thinking we are fine, spiritually right, healthy, doing OK and don’t need any help. Then you go to the doctor and he says he has to operate immediately. We argue, “I’m fine.” As long as you compare yourself to others you’re going to feel fine. It’s easy to find someone who is worse off than you are and you compare yourself to them. You know what I mean?
In front of God’s Word, where nothing is hidden from His eyes, even so the surgeon sees the problem and what does he do? Ignore it, sew the patient back up? When things I don’t want to deal with confront me head on, when pride and self-satisfaction hit me in the face, when I’m confronted by His standards, when I’m laid bare before God, I know like Paul that nothing good dwells in me that is in my flesh. I find that the only good thing about me is Jesus Christ in me, the hope of glory.
2. The Word of God cuts us where we need to be cut. No one enjoys surgery. God does surgery in a way that even though it may be painful, when we look back we can say, “Thank God.” He cuts to bring to health. The double-edged sword works in our life; it dissects. It means the Word of God cuts to the bone, penetrates to the deepest recesses of our spiritual being, it misses nothing. It doesn’t divide but goes very deep into every cell of your spiritual body; it stops at nothing until all is brought out in the open and then cuts it away, severing things God wants to separate you from. It is spiritual surgery that only God can perform. When you look at how it “divides”, it points to a part of us that only God can see. Joints hold everything together in the body and marrow produces nourishment through blood production in the bones. Needless to say, the devil doesn’t want you to stay on God’s operating table. God judges my thoughts, activities, every motive, and the secret intentions. The biggest lie of our culture/society is “Do what you feel is right.” Feeling is subjective and totally unreliable. What if two people have opposing feelings? The Word of God sorts out reality from fiction. It says “This is right” or “This is wrong.” People are experts in self-deception. Most of the time we project an image of ourselves that is far from reality. We all try to hide our true self from the public self. We create a double security system to ensure this defensive mechanism, enforced with tons of excuses, explanations when this or that is the way it is, we explain away why we do what we do. The Word of God penetrates all this clutter and the sword begins to cut away these security systems and gets all the way into the vault. It sorts out reality from fiction, what is true from fantasy. It does for us what we cannot do for ourselves.
3. God’s Word heals and restores us. Psalm 41: 4 asks God to be merciful and heal us. Isaiah 57:18-19 the Lord declares that He sees our ways and He will heal us; Jeremiah 30: 17 God promises to heal our wounds and it was for these wounds that Jesus suffered and died for us all. There is no surgeon who would open a patient and not sew him back up in order for the wound to heal and the patient restored into full health and strength. The Word of God puts us back together to health—spiritual health. Psalm 107: 20 tells us that “He sent His Word and healed them and delivered them from their destruction.” It’s not in our nature to hang out with someone who knows everything about you, but God does and we try to hide just like in the Garden when Adam and Eve said they hid because they were afraid because they saw they were naked. Naked before God. He wants to do all this so He can heal us, bless us, and fulfill us, strengthen and satisfy us and pour His grace into our lives. Hebrews 4 continues in verse 16 telling us that we can “draw near with confidence to the throne of grace so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.” O, how we need God’s Word in our lives. Psalm 18: 16-19 shows how God takes us, draws us out of the deep things we get ourselves into, He delivers us. “He rescued me because He delighted in me.” It’s all for the sake of the love that God has for each one of us.
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