The spirit of traditionalism, especially in the realm of religion, is one of the great impasses that we fight. It is very difficult for people to become aligned with what God is doing when they are unconsciously linked to tradition (Matthew 15:2–6; Mark 7:5–13). We tend to do things by habit and by rote; and when we do that, our awareness of what we are doing disappears. But God wants to heal us of the last remnants of our unawareness.
Unawareness comes because the human mind is incapable of sustaining constant vivid images and impressions. For instance, the first time you drive through an area that is unknown to you, you notice the street names and landmarks along the way. But by the second or third time, the unawareness is already creeping over you and you notice very little. I wonder if most of you do not drive by habit now. If someone were to ask you what you see each day as you drive to work, you probably could not say, because it has become such a habit. And with a habit comes unawareness. With a tradition, or rituals, or with observances of religion comes unawareness, until the things that God had spoken at the beginning are not alive and fresh as they were at the first (Revelation 2:4–5).
With all my heart, I pray that I will never come before the Lord without that acute awareness of Him—of what He is, who He is, and what He is speaking. I do not want to ever even quote a Word that He said—though I may have known it from childhood—without it being fresh and alive to me. Neither do I want to come into His presence to eat His flesh and drink His blood and have it be only a ritual of Communion, when it can be the most fantastic medium of miracle power and revelation there is. The greatest way that God has provided for us to appropriate the life of Christ is through the Communion (John 6:48–58). Yet consistently, we make it something less because we do it frequently. But on the other hand, maybe we don’t do it enough; maybe we should do it every day.
Smith Wigglesworth, used to take Communion every day. He has been called the apostle of faith. How intensely he went after unbelief! How intensely he went after passivity!
Maybe he left a mark on me, because all my life I have been fighting that passivity which people have when it comes to serving God. Everywhere he went, people were confronted with the Lord. God had shown him that He would take him, but there would be a people He would raise up to walk in far more. He had such an awareness of the Lord. Every morning was spent waiting on God. With some wine and some unleavened bread, he and his whole family would spend hours in Communion, waiting on the Lord.
We have yet to realize the great means of appropriation that is available through just coming and taking the wine, taking the bread (Matthew 26:26–28). Jesus said, “Unless you eat My flesh and drink My blood, you have no life in you” (John 6:53). God deliver us from just taking a sip of wine and eating a cracker! Bring us to the appropriation of the life of the Lord Jesus Christ Himself!
We need God to give us a revelation of what He does for us in enabling us, by a simple act of faith, to appropriate the life of Jesus Christ. You may think, “I know that. I have taken Communion since I was a child.” But Paul wrote, concerning those who do not discern the Lord’s body as they partake, “For this cause many are weak and sickly among you, and some sleep” (I Corinthians 11:27–32). Some people miss the infusion of life from Jesus Christ into their very being because they partake in an unworthy manner, “not discerning the Lord’s body.” They do not discern it. They do not perceive what they are receiving.
The first Passover (Exodus 12) was a beautiful prelude to the Communion. Each Israelite family killed a lamb and put the blood on their doorposts and on the lintel. The destroying angel passed over that night and struck all the firstborn of the Egyptians (Exodus 12:29–30) but what an immunity the Israelites had! (Exodus 12:13, 23; Hebrews 11:28.) They sat there and ate the lamb—fearful, trembling slaves eating some lamb to strengthen them because they were getting ready to walk a long way. They were getting ready to leave all the slavery of Egypt behind. Like those Israelites, we are not only delivered from judgment by the blood, but we are strengthened within as we partake of our Passover Lamb. We too are making a journey as we come out of bondage into the glorious liberty of the sons of God (Romans 8:21). We are making that journey now. This is all the more reason why, when we gather together, we ought to take Communion together with an awareness that we are partaking of the Lord Jesus Christ. With this awareness, we will partake very simply, with no strain; we will partake with faith.
A few verses from John 15 will tie this all together so that we will understand something about what the Communion does. We see it as a channel of impartation, but let’s go one step further: How does it work? “I am the true vine, and My Father is the vinedresser. Every branch in Me that does not bear fruit, He takes away; and every branch that bears fruit, He prunes it, that it may bear more fruit. You are already clean because of the word which I have spoken to you.” John 15:1–3. We always come back to the Word. Communion will be something special to you because of the Word. If this Word is a revelation to you, you will be able to partake with faith. But if you sit there and struggle within yourself, speculating one way or the other, then you will receive very little. Speculation over the Word was the favorite pastime of the rabbis and the Pharisees (Mark 7:1–13). Down through the centuries, they have speculated about it saying, “Now Rabbi Hilo says this, and Rabbi Benjamin says that.” But as far as we know, few of these men ever came to know the Lord.
Speculation is not enough (John 5:37–47). Men can know the Scriptures intellectually, speculating back and forth through the years, until finally, all they have is a collection of traditions based upon those speculations (I Timothy 1:3–7; Titus 3:9). Has the church of Jesus Christ come to the place where there’s no more revelation like there was in the early Church, and we only speculate about Communion? What is the Communion? Is it transubstantiation? Do the bread and wine elements really change? Based on their theories, the Roman churches teach that only the priests take the wine, and that as they minister the wafer to the people, it is turned miraculously into the flesh of Jesus Christ. What have they done? Have they split hairs and missed the revelation? I have seen people who did not have any grape juice serve Communion using a soft drink, and the power of God fell upon the people. I am not persuaded that the technicalities are all that valid. The revelation and the faith are really the important thing.
Jesus said, “Now you are clean through the Word” (John 15:3). If you receive that Word as a revelation, fine. But if you only speculate on it, I wonder if it yields its miracle power to you. Open your heart and say, “Lord, just reveal this Word to me.” Why do we still exalt the human intelligence? The Scripture says, Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding. Proverbs 3:5. You are clean through the Word which He speaks.
Christ spoke of our abiding in Him. “Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, unless it abides in the vine, so neither can you, unless you abide in Me.” John 15:4. That is the real issue when you take Communion. You must come and say in your heart, “Lord, here I am. And I absolutely abide in You. I am one with You.” There is no special gimmick that will make it work. You don’t have to cross yourself or light a candle first. You don’t have to make an offering or a subscription. Some Protestant churches make the offering a necessary part of the Communion altar. Most churches give some kind of slant to it. But God forbid that we corrupt the pure appropriation of faith by associating Communion with anything other than the pure flow from God to us by the life of His Son. We know that God expects from us the works which accompany salvation (Hebrews 6:9). But we also know that those works are incidental to abiding in Him and having His Words abide in us.
Jesus said, “If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it shall be done for you.” John 15:7. When we stand before God with pure grace, what really counts is that we are one with Him. In a Communion service, we often have a time of worship to make that contact with the Lord afresh. This is done, not because we are not one with Him, but because the awareness of oneness must be present in the act of faith. In the previous verse He had said, “If you do not abide in Me, you are cut off and burned.” You are destroyed because you are not functional.
Communion was never intended to be a luxury by which you become a superspiritual Christian. Communion was intended to be the basic function whereby you become fruitful in God. That fruitfulness is not what you can go out and produce in money to give to God. It is not your energies so devoted to the Lord, or even giving your body for some charitable cause. That is not enough (I Corinthians 13:3). It is important for you to realize that you do not work for God, or give to “poor gentle Jesus” to help His cause. You work with God; that oneness between you and the Lord must be there (I Corinthians 3:9; Philippians 2:13). It is like a vine and a branch (John 15:1–8). That little branch just hangs onto the vine. It is difficult to know exactly where the little branch starts and the vine ends. If you look at the way they are connected together, you see that they intergrow. You probably could not cut all of the branch loose without tearing out some of the vine.
God has so designed it that we too are the branches, and Christ is the vine. When we take Communion, His blood and His body are entwined in their life-giving force into us. What makes the branch hang low in humility? Its exceeding fruitfulness—the clusters of grapes bow it down. Because the branch has been clinging there and abiding in the vine, the sap has been flowing into it and the fruit has been growing, and the grapes cause it to hang down low. How fruitful it is! As you abide in Him and the Word flows into you, you will be fruitful. If you are not fruitful then something is wrong.
How can we be fruitful before the Lord? Come and drink of the blood; feast upon the body of sacrifice in the Communion service. That is the whole crux of the New Testament. It begins with John the Baptist saying, “Behold the Lamb of God. Behold the Lamb of God which takes away the sin of the world” (John 1:29, 36). Christ is our Passover Lamb (I Corinthians 5:7). As we partake of Communion, we realize: This is the blood that was shed for us. This is the lamb that we eat to give us strength to leave Egypt. This is the strength to leave Babylon (Revelation 18:4). This is the strength to leave our traditional interpretations of religion behind (Philippians 3:4–8). This is the strength we need to forge right into the glorious liberty that belongs today to the sons of God (Romans 8:21). It belongs to us.
Are you thinking, “But what can I do?” Just believe. Receive the Word. The war is always over the Word (Genesis 3:1–5). Satan hates for anyone to receive the Word (Matthew 13:19). He hates anyone who gets out of the ruts of religion and moves in to experience the glorious spiritual realities of God’s Word. Satan hates that because he knows it is his doom (Revelation 12:9–11; 19:9–16).
Think about this message in the months to come. Communion must never become a form or a ritual to us. It must always be alive to our heart. One of the most glorious ways of God meeting your heart is in the Communion service as you pray, “Lord Jesus, I partake of You. You are my very life. You have provided everything I need. I don’t have to be anything but a channel.” Then that glorious life flows into you like the sap from the vine flows into the branch, causing it to blossom out with leaves and buds and to produce fruit. All the time you are clinging to Him. Your roots are reaching right into His heart as you pray, “Thank You, Lord. Thank You for Your life in me.”
When Christ who is our life shall appear, then shall we also appear with Him in glory (Colossians 3:1–4). It does not matter if someone comes along to despise us and try to cut us off. That person is working at the wrong end. Man can cut us back, or God Himself can prune us and purge us until it looks like there is not much left except the little part that clings to Him (John 15:1–2). But we will bear even more fruit the next year. Because our roots are in our blessed Lord Jesus Christ, man cannot sever them, and demons cannot molest or destroy them. It is His life that flows into us and produces the true fruit of the Spirit within us.
We are reaching into certain vital truths out of the book of John. May the Lord help us to receive these truths in such a way that they bring life to us.
I am going to make a statement which I want you to weigh very carefully in your heart: The Living Word of God does not consist of statements only; it is the substance of God. This is another way of saying what John said in John chapter 1: In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made. In him was life; and the life was the light of men. John 1:1–4. And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth. Verse 14.
You have to understand these truths from the first chapter in order to understand the fourteenth chapter. John 14 begins with Jesus comforting His disciples by saying, “I go to the Father. And you know the way where I am going” (John 14:1–4). Then Thomas said to Him, “Lord, we do not know where You are going; how do we know the way?” Verse 5. Jesus replied, “… No one comes to the Father, but through Me. If you had known Me, you would have known My Father also; from now on you know Him, and have seen Him.” Philip said to Him, “Lord, show us the Father, and it is enough for us.” John 14:6–8. It is possible that we could even see the physical form of Jesus, as Thomas and Philip did, and still not have a revelation. But if they had been listening to the Word Jesus spoke, if they had known the Lord Jesus, they would have known the Father, because everything that Christ was, was a Word of revelation. He was constantly trying to show people that it was by the Word which He spoke that they would know Him (John 14:9–11; Hebrews 1:1–3).
Christ did not have any form or comeliness that we should desire Him (Isaiah 53:2). Do you believe that? Artists paint such beautiful pictures of Christ hanging on the cross, but Isaiah tells us, “His visage was marred more than any man” (Isaiah 52:14). Everything that the Father allowed to happen to His Son was to put Him into a place where people would not know Him after the flesh. In fact, Paul said, “Though we have known Christ after the flesh, henceforth we know Him so no longer” (II Corinthians 5:16). He was speaking about the fact that we cannot make a painting of Jesus Christ which will now reveal who He really is. It is only when someone speaks His Word and we receive it with faith, that He is revealed to us. The book of Romans tells us: “Faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God” (Romans 10:17). That faith, born within us by the Word, says, “That is the Lord. I believe.”
The Lord will test us. Christ asked His own disciples, “Whom do men say that the Son of Man is?” (Matthew 16:13–17.) Many in Christ’s day had speculated that He could be John the Baptist, Elijah, Jeremiah, or one of the prophets. They had heard the Word, but they had not really heard it (Mark 4:11–12). Then Jesus asked, “Whom do you say that I am?” Peter replied, “Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God.” Jesus said, “You are blessed. Flesh and blood did not reveal that to you. It did not come by speculation, or by someone talking you into it. But My Father revealed it to you.” Closely related to that revelation of the Lord is the faith and the commissions, and the keys of the Kingdom that the gates of hell cannot prevail against (Matthew 16:18–19). Through the centuries, there has been much speculation about this passage. It is not hard for the enemy to confuse people who do not have a revelation.
From the very beginning of this walk with God, close to thirty years ago, I have been deeply aware that I cannot preach sermons to induce people into something. Instead, I pray that an impartation by the Holy Spirit will come through my voice and through the Words I speak. I proclaim the Word, but that alone is not enough. I am not in a debate society; I do not speak my own word. I am a man of God to speak His Word (I Thessalonians 2:13). And as I speak His Word, I pray that God will give entrance to the heart, and that revelation will come to the heart. If there is no revelation, if I have only convinced men after the wisdom of the flesh (I Corinthians 1:17), then someone else, more persuasive than I am, could persuade them in another direction (Colossians 2:1–5).
Paul was probably as good at public speaking and debate as any man of his time. He was an excellent debater and speaker, and he certainly knew the Scriptures. And yet when he came to Corinth, a cosmopolitan seaport filled with prostitutes and homosexuals and everything else, he said, “I was with you in much weakness and trembling. I did not speak with the persuasive, enticing words of man’s wisdom. I did not want to talk you into anything. I wanted my preaching to come in the demonstration of the Spirit and of power, so that your faith would not stand in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God” (I Corinthians 2:1–8). Paul knew what it was all about. He knew that a person could go out as a missionary and try to persuade men to know the Lord from here to the ends of the earth, and the demons would come right behind, undoing everything, unless the people had a revelation of Christ through a Word (Matthew 13:19). But if the people had a revelation of Christ through an anointed Living Word from God, their faith would stand.
Faith that is born by a Word that takes fire in your heart is a living thing (I Peter 1:23–25). Because it is not born of argument or of the wisdom of man, the gates of hell cannot prevail against it. Even your own failures cannot destroy it. If you have a philosophy you can always say, “It isn’t working. Look what is happening. I am doing the wrong thing. I tried to have positive thinking and it didn’t work because I know better. I know what I am in the flesh.” You will throw away the philosophy if it is not a revelation to your heart. But if you have a Word that is a revelation to you, then even when you seem to fall flat on your face, you will get up and say, “This one thing I know: God spoke to my heart (II Timothy 1:12–14). I can fail a thousand times and still get up and walk on with God because He will honor that Word. It will still be true. Somehow by His grace, I am going to walk perfectly in that Word He gave me.”
It may seem a little ironic to you, but have you noticed that right after God speaks to your heart about a real deliverance, you fall so flat on your face—often within a few hours—that it looks as if it was not a Word at all? God tests you to see whether you accept the Word because He revealed it to your heart, or whether you accept it because it looks good and circumstances are compatible with it. Do you accept it because it seems reasonable and everyone else thinks it is true?
In the name of confirmation and divine order, we have sometimes done things which have perhaps hindered an individual’s walk with the Lord. We have not fully understood the part that confirmation is to play when we minister to those who seek direction. When someone who doesn’t know what decision to make comes to the pastor and the elders asking, “What am I supposed to do in this problem? Give me the Word of the Lord,” the ministries then give the Word of the Lord and that person goes on his way. But that does not always work out too well. We should not continue to minister that way anymore. When someone comes for a word of direction, I would rather that the ministries begin by asking, “Do you love the Lord?”
“Yes, I love the Lord.”
“Does the Word really live in your heart?”
“Yes, the Word really lives in my heart.”
“Are you going to walk with God?”
“Yes, I am going to really walk with God.”
“Then go back and find out what God wants for your life and then come and tell us. Maybe we could tell you right now exactly what you are to do, but we are not going to. You come and tell us what the Lord speaks to your heart. Or, do not even tell us what the Lord has shown you and we will tell you what the Word you received was.” This is not done as a challenge to determine if the Word can be found in the mouth of the prophets. But in this day, if all of God’s people are going to be taught of the Lord (Isaiah 54:13), then all must learn to hear His voice (John 10:3–4, 27). They will learn the ways of revelation because they have clung to His Word (Psalm 119:105–106).
The Word coming to a heart of faith opens the door to revelation. But a Word which hits a heart without revelation only opens the door to speculation and that is a very variable factor in a person’s life. The world’s wisdom is like that. Pollsters take opinion polls about some current issue, for example: What is the president’s popularity now? They try to take a cross section of the population to determine what people are thinking on any issue. Then they speculate by a “scientific process” and reach their conclusion: “It appears that this is the way it really is.” However, God can anoint an apostle and that apostle can present the true picture, saying, “Let God be true and every man a liar” (Romans 3:4).
The world by its wisdom will never know God, because its wisdom is based upon the evidence of the senses (I Corinthians 1:21; 3:18–20). Through “scientific inquiry,” they reach certain conclusions, speculations of philosophy and “science falsely so called” (Colossians 2:2–8; I Timothy 6:20–21, KJV). They do not realize that there is a whole different field out there—the field of certainty, where a man says, “My eyes have not seen it; my ears have not heard it. It never entered into my heart to imagine what God has prepared for me because I love Him. I never would have guessed it, but God has revealed these things to me by His Spirit” (I Corinthians 2:7–10).
I Corinthians 2:12 says, Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the spirit which is of God; that we might know (really know) the things that are freely given to us of God. They are freely given, as though God were saying, “Have a ton, have a bushel; take a peck, or at least a glassful.” God has freely given us fantastic things. Do not say, “I always thought it would be so.” No, you didn’t. Your eye has not seen it and your ear has not heard it. Even the great men of faith who had wonderful things from the Lord and moved by revelation realized that they had only touched the surface.
What does God have for us now? He has so many things for us that our hearts have never even imagined it. It is strange that we sit under a Living Word, and yet we reveal how little revelation we have had of it by the minimal expectations we have in our heart. We have such small expectations! We are not expecting things to happen as we should. We ought to be looking around all the time with expectancy, saying, “I am going to see it! I am going to see it because God has revealed it to me.” That’s where the reality is.
As God speaks a Word to your heart, what He is really wanting is for you to come into a worship of Him (John 4:23; Revelation 14:7). You might think, “Oh, that’s good; I am good at worshiping. I sing on key now and I am getting pretty good at singing psalms. I am fitting into the church services. It is not quite like my old denominational church, but I like it.” We could get into just as much of a rut in our worship as any denominational church with its anthems and its choirs, and actually not meet God in it. Does it not disturb you that we could come into a thing of religion and not meet God in it? It disturbs me. I am your friend and brother, but I will resist the making of a rut and a ritual out of this Word. We are not going to allow that to happen. We cannot become just another group of people who can go through the motions and know how to pronounce “Shibboleth” (Judges 12:6). That will not be enough.
In the days set before us, we will strive to know Him (Philippians 3:10). “They that know their God will be strong and do exploits” (Daniel 11:32). It has to be based upon a revelation. And is there any knowledge of the Lord except through His Word? When He speaks His Word, He reveals Himself, because the Word is the substance of God. “In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God” (John 1:1). You can pray, “I would like to know something about the attributes of God. I’m going to study about love.” Don’t study about love. Just let the Word hit you: God is love (I John 4:8); God really loves you (I John 4:9); He shed His love abroad in your heart (Romans 5:5). Listen through the anointing of the Holy Spirit. What God is will come through in His Words; they are freighted with God.
The Word is like a freight train; each car is filled with God. But some men’s speeches are like a long train of empty cars. The enemy can use empty freight cars. Paul warned about people who have empty words to no profit (I Timothy 1:6; 6:20–21). What did he mean by “empty words”? Like an empty freight car, there is nothing in them. A man can speak words to you—words which give you an impression of ideas and certain thoughts—but they do not do anything to you because there is nothing in those words (Ephesians 5:6; II Timothy 2:14, 16).
If you have a Living Word, it may look just like any other train. In fact, those who speak empty words may be preaching on the same text and saying the same things as the man who speaks a Living Word. But if the anointing is not there, then God is not in the inside of that freight car. God says, “I want to fill every Word with Myself. I want to reveal Myself in every Word (John 6:63). I am the Living Word. When I speak a Living Word, I convey Myself to you.” What do we have to do? We hear His Word (John 6:28–29). We abide in Him and we let His Words abide in us (John 15:7–8).
If you listen to His Word, you will be filled with Him.
When I listen to a Living Word and hear it with faith, or when I speak a Living Word and others listen to it with faith, God is so in that Word that it contains right within itself all the miracle of its own fulfillment. All we have to do is believe. We are like the soil which receives the seed.
In one of the parables on the Kingdom of heaven, Jesus likened it to a mustard seed which a man sowed in his field (Matthew 13:31–32). When the good ground took the seed, and warmed it, it began to grow. Was there some miracle in the soil? No, the miracle was in the seed. Though it was very small and did not look like much, that seed had the potential within it of becoming a big tree.
Have you had a Word from the Lord? Good! Then hide it in your heart (Psalm 119:11). Plant it way down in there. Then let the Lord rain on it (Hosea 6:3); let the sun shine on it and get it warm. A miracle will grow from every Word you receive, because God is in that Word (I Peter 1:23).
We talk so often about the Living Word, but what do we mean by that? We have defined it as a “Living” Word because there are so many people who say that they are preaching the Word, when what they are preaching is really a dead word. But an anointing is coming from the Lord on a new level to bring forth a new age. All we have to do is open our hearts and receive that Word. But isn’t faith without works dead? Don’t we have to do something? Yes, but you will do something. If you have had a real revelation, you will begin to act on that Word. Faith is an action word, not a passive belief (James 2:21–26). Believing the Word is not a matter of passively accepting in your mind that the Word is true. “The demons also believe,” James says (verse 19). Assenting to a truth with your mind is not enough. That Word must be received in your heart.
When you believe the Living Word in your heart, something starts happening. The Word is turned loose within you and you begin to see the miracle and the wonder of it. The Living Word is much more than ideas and statements which convey a concept. When someone blesses you and speaks a Word from the Lord over you, that Word contains within itself the potential fulfillment. I wonder how much further down the road we would be right now if our hearts had been more receptive to the Word we were receiving. How we should hang onto every Word that God speaks! How careful we should be not to neglect it! (Hebrews 2:1–3.)
The Word that we receive will bear fruit as we hang onto it (John 15:7–8). We don’t have to pray, “Lord, I heard Your Word; now do a miracle.” He gave you a miracle when He gave you a Word! (Romans 4:20–21.) Grow it! Grasp this idea: He gave you a miracle. He gave you change. If you have a Word from the Lord about some ministry you are to fulfill, don’t say, “Now I am just waiting for the Lord to do it.” He did it! He gave you a Word. “But when will it happen?” It will happen when you believe and accept that Word and give yourself wholly to it. Paul wrote to Timothy reminding him of the prophecies that had come over his life when he and the elders had laid hands on him and prophesied (I Timothy 4:14–16). What was Timothy supposed to do? Paul admonished him, “Give yourself wholly to those prophecies over you. Then your profiting will appear to everyone; they will all see it.”
I am not concerned about getting another Word; I am disturbed about releasing into fullness the Words God has already given us. If we can get those Words functioning, we will be well down the road. It is those who do not walk in a Word which they have received from the Lord who back off from it and say, “It is not real to me. Give me another Word. I’ll shop around; I will go over here. Maybe that group has a Word for me.” If you had a revelation from the Lord that the Word was real, then don’t waver. Stay right with it without wavering (Hebrews 10:23). If you have a Word but it does not seem real to you, then seek the Lord about it; seek Him until it becomes a revelation to your own heart. When the Word begins to live within you, you can be sure that it will take over.
I can hear some of you say, “I want the Lord to show me what I should do tomorrow. I also have a decision to make next month. I am going through a real battle, too, trying to overcome a habit in my life.” Almost everyone has some kind of a habit in his life. Wrong breathing is a bad habit; we should all breathe right. Are you trying to overcome a habit, believing that then God will meet you? Good luck—I hope it works for you. It has not worked for very many.
Someone else says, “I really want God to meet my heart. I have a lot of problems, and I want the Lord to give me a deliverance and some direction.” Direction and deliverance are often misunderstood. If you give the average person direction today, in two weeks he will be back for some more direction. If you give him a deliverance today, he will get himself entangled in something else and want a deliverance again in another week. This always seems to happen.
But what happens to a person who gives himself wholly to the Word? He comes to abide in the Lord, and the Word abides in him (John 15:7). As a result of this relationship, his needs and problems will be taken care of, because they are only a part of the whole picture for his life. He focuses upon the Word and what the Lord is doing.
In Psalm 119 David asked: Wherewithal shall a young man cleanse his way? (There are a lot of young people who have to cleanse their way today.) By taking heed thereto according to thy word. Verse 9. Thy word have I hid in mine heart (why?), that I might not sin against thee. Verse 11. Why worry about getting the deliverance from a sin and the direction for the problems, when all you have to do is to fill your heart with the Word, and it will push everything else out.
“But I want God to make me holy. I want to be a part of that glorious Bride of Christ, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing (Ephesians 5:27). I would like to stand before Him in the beauty of holiness” (Psalm 96:9). That is wonderful. But Ephesians 5:26 tells how Christ will cleanse that Bride so that He can present her to Himself without any blemish: by “the washing of water by the Word.” Jesus said to His disciples, “Now you are clean through the Word which I have spoken unto you” (John 15:3). Do you see the importance of this? You are clean through the Word which He has spoken to you.
“But I thought there were things I had to do before I could be clean. Don’t I have to cut it off, trim it up, dress it up, or do something so that I will be presented in a more favorable light to God?” No! It cannot be done that way. You are a loser right there if you try to dress up the old nature. There are no gimmicks you can work which God cannot see through (Isaiah 64:6). He knows when you have dressed up your old flesh and made it look religious. What He really wants to do is to change you (II Corinthians 3:18). Now you are clean through the Word—through the Word. Do you think, “You are oversimplifying this. You are off on a tangent. Do you mean that all I have to do for the things to happen that I need is just to give myself wholly to the Word?” Right! That is what I am saying. “But don’t I have to do a lot of other things too?” Perhaps, but you had better start with the Word. Then the other things that you are to do will fall in line.
When Jesus was in Capernaum, a centurion came to Him for help. He was a man of authority, with a hundred soldiers under him. No doubt these soldiers were all good, trained fighters, because keeping the peace in Judea was not easy in those days. The centurion had a servant whom he loved dearly, like a son (Matthew 8:5–13). The Greek word pais, used for servant in verse 6, indicates that he could have called him his son in the same way that Paul spoke of Timothy as his own son (I Timothy 1:2). This one who was so dear to him was very sick, and the centurion entreated the Lord, “My servant, my dear son, lies at home sick.” When Jesus said He would come and heal him, the centurion answered, “Don’t bother to come. Just speak the Word only, and my servant will live. I am not worthy for You to come under my roof. Speak the Word only” (Matthew 8:8–9).
Jesus turned to the people nearby, who probably could quote Scriptures fluently and had all their exact meanings figured out, and He said, “I have not found such faith before. Not even in Israel have I found anyone who would believe Me like this.” Then He spoke the Word of healing and went on His way. When the centurion returned home, he found that the boy had been healed at that very hour. He was healed by a Word (Matthew 8:13).
When you start believing the Word, the miracles are not very far away. Do you need more faith? Faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the Word (Romans 10:17). All you have to do is open your heart the best you can and say, “Lord, I am opening up to the Word!” Hide the Word in your heart. It will be your deliverance. It will be everything you need, because God has filled that Word with Himself. When you take a Living Word into your heart, you are taking God into your heart.
Romans 10 gives a basic picture of the salvation experience. It tells in a simple way how to repent and believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, how to call on the Lord for deliverance (verses 6–17). In the midst of this, Paul brought in a quotation from Deuteronomy 30: “The Word is not far from you. Do not say that Christ is up in heaven and ask who will bring Him down. Do not say that Christ is in the abyss and ask who will bring Him up. The Word is near you, in your mouth and in your heart” (verses 6–8). Then he said “If you believe in your heart the Lord Jesus Christ and you confess with your mouth, you will be saved” (verse 9).
When the Word comes, you must grab it. You do not have to wonder if He is still down in the pit. He is not in the pit. You do not have to call out, “Jesus, come down from heaven and save me.” It is true that He is in heaven, but the heaven of heavens cannot contain Him (I Kings 8:27). I will tell you where He really is—He is living in the Word in my heart. He is living in the Word in your heart. Christ is there. You believe in your heart the Word that God raised Christ from the dead, and you confess it with your mouth. When you believe that Word and you speak that Word, then you will be delivered, because you have turned God loose with all of His omnipotence which is housed within the precious promises and potentials of His Word (II Peter 1:3–4).
Who fully understands that the energy which created the heavens and the earth is contained in the Words which we have believed? (Psalm 33:6; John 1:1–3.) Every minister should give himself to one thing: that he speak the Word under the anointing of the Holy Spirit which can bring the revelation of Christ to the people. And when they receive that Word, he should also make sure that they hang onto it, because it has a potential of creating many great things.
One important thing to remember along this line has to do with being careful about what you absorb. When you read something very rapidly, you may absorb and retain a lot of truth from what you read. But there is one problem with rapid reading: when you shift gears and read rapidly, it means that your mind will usually accept without question everything you read. You had better know that the book is right before you read it. We do know that we can read the Scriptures and the Living Word that God is bringing forth out of the Scriptures in this generation and we can trust it. Because it is a Living Word that is coming from God, it can change the whole world. We need no other defense for the Word.
As you listen to the Word, you are aware of that anointing and you realize, “This is not sermonizing. I cannot understand the structure of it, but it is the way God is speaking. I know that it is God speaking to my heart.”
There is actually no visible means of support for the Living Word. I do not know how we make it from month to month, but I know that God opens the door. We prophesy and loose the finances, and an answer comes. Behind it is my confident knowledge that for us to be filled with His Word and to speak His Word is all that God needs to bring forth His Kingdom. This does not mean that I will whisper that Word in a corner; I am going to speak boldly.
John chapters 14–16 speak about the issue of the Word. Jesus said to His disciples, “If they received My Word, they will receive your Word” (John 15:20). “If they have known Me, they will know the Father” (John 14:7). He said to the Father, “I have given them (His disciples) Thy Word, and the world has hated them” (John 17:14).
The Living Word will be the basis of persecution (John 15:19–22). Anyone who walks in a Living Word from God will be persecuted. This persecution will not come because we are religious, because we are not that religious. If we are hearing the Word that is coming the way we should hear it, it is destroying much of the old religiosity that we have been hiding behind all these years. It is bringing us to the place where we either have a walk with God based on a revelation or we don’t, but we cannot hide behind it. We cannot use it like some religious name tag or stamp which proclaims, “I have made it; I have arrived.” That is never effective anyway, because everyone knows better—especially those who wear the same tag. They know you haven’t made it anymore than they have. Having a religious label on you does not mean that you have made it or that you are perfect.
A can of food may have a government stamp of approval on it and still have contamination in it. The inspectors allow for a certain percentage of contamination; in their thinking, this is only to be expected. But I don’t want them to do that with my food and say, “This is to be expected.” Neither do we want to hide behind some religious label and say, “A certain amount of defilement is to be expected.” Does this mean that we are expecting perfection in our walk with God? We will have the human element. The human element may not be eliminated right away, but we are expecting the divine element to come forth in perfection. We want something that we see working. We want to have a Word that works. We want to have a Living Word that is so filled with God that we see God coming forth in our life every day that we live (Colossians 1:28–29). Then we can say, like Paul, “I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I; it is Christ who lives in me” (Galatians 2:20). This is the basic theme of the whole of the Scriptures.
A Word from Christ living in your heart means Christ living in your heart. Jesus said, “If you abide in Me, and My Words abide in you, you can ask anything and it will be done” (John 15:7). Do you believe it? Do you think it will work? Then apply it. Let His Word live in your heart more and more. When you hear a Word from the Lord, don’t waver or speculate about it; let all your weight down on it.
Do you still have reservations about the Word, due to old loyalties or conditionings in your thinking? It takes a while to get rid of those conditionings. How do we do it? The best way is to stop putting the Word in the computer of your mind, and instead, will to believe the Word down deep in your heart. There is a beautiful passage in Proverbs that says, Trust in the Lord with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths. Proverbs 3:5–6. Although this does not say, “Receive the Word in your heart,” it means the same thing.
Magnify the Word; do not magnify the vessel. Glorify God for the Word and forget about the man. You do not have to defend him or exonerate him. Neither do you have to be concerned whether or not everything you have heard is true, because that is not really the issue. Instead, ask yourself, “Is God speaking a Word?”
“Well, I can’t believe that God would speak out of an impure vessel.” Of course you can’t, not if that vessel lives in this generation. But David did a lot of questionable things and we still believe the Psalms that he wrote, in spite of his failings. There are more prophecies about the Messiah in the Psalms than in any other book. What about Peter? Did he make any mistakes? How about Thomas? Both of them made a few mistakes, and it is all recorded in the Scriptures for us to read. James and John wanted to bring fire down from heaven and burn up some Samaritans (Luke 9:54–55). James would later lay down his life as the first martyr among the disciples (Acts 12:2) and John was called the “apostle of love.” And yet they said, “Let’s call fire down and burn them up!” Does that sound like an apostle of love? Do you like what they did?
Paul wrote to the Corinthians, “We have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellency and the power may be of God and not from ourselves” (II Corinthians 4:7). That is why anyone who lives godly will suffer persecution (II Timothy 3:12). God always intended it to be that way.
There is a story about one of the Renaissance artists who painted a picture of the Last Supper in which Christ was holding up a beautiful golden goblet covered with diamonds and jewels. When the picture was put on display, the artist listened to the comments. People were impressed with the beautiful cup. He heard various ones discussing the Holy Grail, wondering what could have happened to that cup of the Last Supper. The artist went home and wept. No one had even noticed the Christ. So he took the painting back to his studio and painted out the cup. In its place, he painted a little earthen vessel in the Lord’s hand as He was blessing it. After that, no one noticed the cup anymore; they saw the Lord.
That illustrates what happens with this Living Word. God has so designed it that the one who speaks it does not even receive credit for being a good preacher. He is not eloquent; he does not seem to have much ability (II Corinthians 3:5). All he does is speak a Word from the Lord.
It has been many years since I have had a compliment on my preaching. No one ever comes up to me and says, “My, what a good preacher you are. What an excellent sermon.” I never hear that. Do you know what they say instead? “That was a real Word from the Lord. The Lord met my heart.” That I hear thousands of times; that is the key. We have this treasure in earthen vessels. It is the Lord who will be seen. It is the Lord who will be revealed in His Word. He never intended for us to get the glory at all (Isaiah 42:8; 48:11). He wants us to be vessels. His Word is the treasure (II Corinthians 4:5–7).