03/31/2026
Is God’s Word at work in us? This is a question that challenges us because inevitably we ask ourselves, “what does that actually mean?” Does it mean that we ask, and the work is His to assign? Does it mean that His Word is an expression of His will, and that the work is our striving to complete it? Is His Word a promise to us, and the work how that promise comes alive? Or perhaps His Word is a lesson in life, and the work is how it is being taught to us. Each of these are examples of how God gives His Word and how it works within us. Do you believe His Word is His Bond? Or perhaps the first question we should ask ourselves is “do I believe that the Word and God are one and the same?”
“And we also thank God constantly for this, that when you received the word of God, which you heard from us, you accepted it not as the word of men but as what it really is, the word of God, which is at work in you believers.”
1 Thessalonians 2:13 ESV
The one thing that is always the same in each of these examples is that He is faithful and true in every manifestation of Himself through His Word; From the expression of His emotions like Love, and the promise of providing for us, to His Commandments, and His Judgement. This is the unfailing TRUTH in God’s Word, but the PURPOSE in His taking an interest in giving us His Word in the first place is in how it actually works within us to change our lives and makes us perfect in Jesus Christ... it is His desire for a personal eternal relationship with us. So, when God’s Word is at work, even in physical ways, there is a spiritual portion to it that runs deep within it that makes us better, alive, and more like Him.
“as it is written, "I have made you the father of many nations"—in the presence of the God in whom he believed, who gives life to the dead and calls into existence the things that do not exist.”
Romans 4:17 ESV
Our God takes things that appear final, or lost, and makes them new, alive, and fresh again. He made all of the universe by speaking it into existence through His Word, so how can we doubt in His ability to change the wretch we are into the saint He would have us become... and to do so through His Word? Listen to what Pastor Andrew Murray writes…
“One of the deepest secrets of receiving the blessing of God’s Word is faith - faith that the Word will work in me the very thing it commands or promises. It effectually works in those who believe. Nothing can resist its power when received into the heart through the Holy Spirit.” – Andrew Murray
We are not meant to use God’s Word to make us great, and yet it does; even in our most humble spirit, nature, and meekness. We are not meant to use God’s Word to get what we want from Him, and yet He gives to us according to His will and our expressed need, because He cares for us. We are not meant to use God’s Word as a contract against which we hold Him, and yet His Word is ever true and binding; He embodies no deception or evil for He is the essence of goodness. God’s Word can appear mysterious because it says something that sounds so simple on the surface but becomes so complex when we consume it and try to make it a part of us.
I fell in love with my wife, and that love was so overpowering that I expressed it to her and asked her to marry me. We were young, and I had no idea what the true depth of my love for her really entailed, or the ways that it would change me, and change us, as it grew. I also didn’t fully understand that being married wasn’t another way of saying “and they lived happily ever after.” Marriage turned out to be full of challenges... troubles, losses, deaths, births, comings and goings, it was incredibly complicated, but by adhering to our faith we lived through these things together as one and grew closer. Likewise, there is the Word of God which sounds simple and yet isn’t... being joined in matrimony is much more than two signatures on a license... it is one life, one love, one flesh, and a single existence being worked out together. God’s Word joins us as one and works within us in the same way.
“and the two shall become one flesh.' So they are no longer two but one flesh.”
Mark 10:8 ESV
Every Word of God changes us, and if we take each of them into our heart, then they will begin to continuously remake us into something more amazing as we live them. Much of God’s Word is not a full-grown tree, it is a seed. It is a finger stuck into the soil of our lives, our faith, or our souls, and its germination is the beginning of His ultimate desire for us. This is what we mean by God’s Word being at work within us... it is every Word, and every manifestation of God that through action becomes who we are, and each of those Words then becomes a part of the relationship, the garden, and the eternity that He desires to share with us. Are we ready to allow God’s Word to work in us?
Prayer:
Father, I thank you for your Word, and the life that is contained within it. I thank you for the promises, the gifts, the surprises, the love, and every manifestation by which you reveal it to me. Holy Father, I thank you for the ever-growing nature of even the simplest expressions you use, and the blessings that continue to flow from them. Heavenly Father, I pray that every seed, as represented by each Word you reveal to me, finds fertile ground within my soul, and begins to grow as I work to nurture it. Lord, give me patience as I strive to know your will, and wisdom so that I will not pull up a single plant that I mistake for a weed before you have brought it into bloom. Show me Gracious Father that your Word does not return to you void and let this truth reveal to me its continuous good work within me. In all of this, and in every Word, I praise you and give you the glory found within the fruit of your Word. Great are you my God, and great are your works within me! Holy, Holy, Holy, art thou, and eternally prolific are you through each Word you give us. Praised be your name... now and for forevermore… praised be my God who is the Word.
“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.”
John 1:1 ESV
“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 55:11 ESV
Hallelujah! Hallelujah! Hallelujah!
Amen!
Rich Forbes