Put the Word First!
Jesus said, “the Words that i speak unto you, they are SPIRIT & they are LIFE!”— (John 6:63)
The main key to Christian strength is spelled out in John 15. “Abide in me and I in you”. The Word is Jesus, the Word is God, the Word is spirit, and the Word is life! Without the Word, you’re simply without Jesus, you’re without Spirit, you’re without Life, you’re dead!
Jesus is the Word and you have to have a dose of Him every day. You must have a good feeding and feasting on God’s Word every single day. Just like you have to eat in order to have physical strength, you have to eat of the Word to have spiritual strength.
“As newborn babes, DESIRE the sincere milk of the Word, that ye may grow thereby.”— 1Pet.2:2 . That’s a picture of a baby who must have its mother’s milk in order to LIVE. Without receiving nourishment from the good, wholesome, nourishing, encouraging & feeding Truth of God’s Word, you will STARVE & eventually DIE spiritually!
It’s dangerous to neglect the Word! The minute you start crowding the Word out of your lives, you’re getting too busy! You’ll never have the spiritual strength and stamina or the spirit to live out Christ’s life unless you yourself are drinking in the Word and being spiritually nourished and strengthened by it yourself first.
When we’re weak in faith it’s because we’re weak in the Word! And it’s our own fault if we’re weak in the Word. We’re either not reading the Word, or not receiving the Word!
The secret of power and victory and overcoming and fruitfulness and fire and life and warmth and light and leadership, everything, is the Word! And the lack of it is the secret of backsliding and failure and coldness and darkness and weakness and dying spiritually.
The Word and Jesus must always have first place in your heart and your thoughts and your time. This is our whole duty and our whole obligation and our whole job, to love God and to love others. God considers His Word even more important than His Name! His Word is very important, beloved, and you had better not neglect it nor in any way fail to receive it, believe it, act on it and obey it! There’s nothing more important than the Word!
That’s what’s wrong with most weak Christians: They’ve neglected the Word & have grown weaker & weaker until they’re defeated by the World. They’ve neglected their only hope of victory, the Life, light, strength & power of the Word!
Every Christian has the Word right there at their fingertips. They have endless strength, instruction, encouragement, and the answer to all their problems. Everyone of us has it equally available. It just depends on how hungry we are, how willing we are to take the time to read and study and absorb and believe and put it into practice. It’s got to be to where we depend on it.
What does it mean when you depend on something? It means you rely on it, you need it, you miss it when you don’t have it, you can’t live without it. For example, in the flesh, we depend on food, water, and oxygen. The Word is even more necessary than our daily food or sleep or exercising. If we tried to go without those things, we wouldn’t last long, would we? That’s how foolish it is to try to go without the Word!
The Word is the foundation of our spiritual lives, and knowing and depending on the Word is absolutely crucial if we want to be successful for the Lord!
No one has ever accomplished much for the Lord without spending a lot of tile in the Word, studying it, believing it, and living it. If somehow you haven’t dwelt in the Word, kept the Word, taught your children the Word and made them examples of the Word, then you have failed! If you are not absorbing the Word yourself and living the Word and preaching the Word and practicing the Word and making your kids good examples of the Word, you’re missing the whole message!
Spiritual strength comes from abiding in the Word. For these are the true christian soldiers–those who desire true strength, those who have the faith to put other things aside and to feast upon the strengthening Spirit that comes from the Word.
It is those who are in the Word, who read it avidly, and obey and follow it, who continue to grow and move forward. But those who allow themselves to lose their fire for the Word, who grow familiar with it and think it isn’t necessary to study and absorb it every day, those will not stay strong and healthy in spirit. They will slowly grow weaker, and when the big tests come along, they won’t have the power to give them faith and strength of spirit.
The Word of God is our spiritual sword that drives away & defeats the Devil every time we use it! When Jesus Himself was tempted by the Devil, He fought back with the Word! (See Mat.4:1-10).
Maybe you don’t see how you can possibly take more time in the Word when there’s so much to do and so few to do it, but … you cannot possibly afford to not take this time! If the Word is the answer to every question, the solution to every problem, what on earth could possibly be keeping you away from it? … If the Word is the key to every door, the secret to every mystery, if it’s power and victory and light and life, what could hold you back from taking the time in His Word?
If you put the Word first, the Lord will always give you time somehow to take care of the other things. “Seek ye first the kingdom of God and all these things shall be added unto you”. You must rid yourselves of all that stands in the way of this. Detach yourselves from other things that clutter your life–the cares of the world, the pride of life, anything that opposes My Word.
It’s simply a law of God! If you want to prosper, if you want to be blessed, if you want power and plenty and provision–then you’d better keep His law. Make it sacred! Make it untouchable! Make it sacrosanct [inviolable]! Make it indispensable! Make it imperative! And by all means, at all costs, make it happen! Do it!
The bare minimum of daily Word time for any Christian should be one-and-a-half hours a day–although the preferred would be two hours. Why? It’s your spiritual lifeline.
The Enemy is always trying to hinder or disrupt your time in the Word, and even destroy it if you’ll let him. If he can’t convince you to not read the Word, he’ll try to squelch the power and effect of the Word in your life through familiarity or a lack of hunger.
A lot has to do with your own DESIRE to hear from the Lord & your own personal HUNGER & RECEPTIVITY. “BLESSED are they which do HUNGER & THIRST after righteousness, for THEY shall be filled. For He hath filled the HUNGRY with good things, but the rich (full) He hath sent empty away!“– Mat.5:6 ; Luk.1:53 . If you read His Word prayerfully, & sincerely ask God to guide you, He always answers the hungry heart!
So much has to do with your ATTITUDE. The Scribes & the Pharisees of Jesus’ day were fluent in Scripture, they knew it by heart, they copied it all the time by hand. But because they were so self-satisfied & self-righteous. Unless the Holy Spirit reveals some things to you, enlightens your mind, you can be totally BLIND to certain truths that have been right there in front of you all the time! But if you earnestly pray, as David did, “OPEN THOU MINE EYES that I may behold WONDROUS things out of Thy Law” ( Psa.119:18 ),
When the Holy Spirit quickens a passage or verse to you, applying it to your own personal situation, it brings the Word to LIFE! The Lord will bring His Word to life & give you things personally, answers to your problems & prayers, as you read His Word. When He applies it to a situation, it suddenly becomes ALIVE! It’s no longer just mere words any more, or words that just run through your HEAD, but all of a sudden it hits your HEART & you really get the POINT! “The ENTRANCE of Thy Word giveth LIGHT, it giveth UNDERSTANDING to the simple!”- (Psa.119:130).
In Psalm 119, David talks so much about God’s WORDS, & that’s where he got his strength & his life & his wisdom & his power & his victory. David lived in the Word night & day, as we should also.
Real study time is not only reading time, but LISTENING TO GOD TIME also. The minute you begin to stop, look & listen to the Lord’s recorded WRITTEN Word, you are immediately putting yourself in the position of being willing to LISTEN, so then the Lord can begin to speak to you & give you His LIVING Word!
You can miss a lot of the meaning, the real depth of what the Lord’s talking about, unless you STOP to really THINK about it sometimes & APPLY the Word to your personal situation. “Study to show thyself approved unto God, a WORKMAN that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the Word of Truth!”-– 2Tim.2:15 .
If you will diligently & prayerfully labour in His Word, He will greatly reward you, & you will agree with David, who exclaimed, “Thy Word is BETTER unto me than THOUSANDS of gold & silver!”— Psa.119:72 .
There is changing power in the Word. But in order for it to work, you have to imbibe it. You have to swallow it, believe it, accept it. And then you have to do it, follow it, implement it. “if ye CONTINUE IN MY WORD, then are ye MY DISCIPLES INDEED, & ye shall KNOW THE TRUTH, & the truth shall MAKE YOU FREE!”-– JN.8:31,32
Jesus said, “One thing is needful, & Mary hath chosen that good part which shall NEVER be taken away from her!”– Luk.10:42 . What is the “good part” that Mary chose?-The WORD! She sat at Jesus’ feet & listened to His Words! This is something that is so needful, so necessary, you’ve simply GOT to do it!–To rest in the Lord & sit at His feet & hear from Him & His Word.
That good part, that one thing that is needful, that’s the one thing that God requires and looks at more than any other obedience or good deed or even sacrificial deed that you do, is your time spent with Jesus, sitting down at His feet to learn of Him.
If you don’t respect the Word, you’d better watch out! … You’re offending God! He’s not going to stand for indifference to His Word. You believe in Jesus as much as you absorb His Word. It’s that simple.
If you don’t hold on to the Word for dear life, you’re going to find yourself slipping into the oblivion of little or no usefulness to the Lord. He wants to use you, but He can only do so if you keep your mind stayed on Him and His Word.
The Word is what keeps you separate from the world!—“I have given them thy word, & the world hath hated them because they are not of the world. sanctify them through thy truth: THY WORD IS TRUTH!”— JN.17:14,17 .
The Word keeps you from backsliding—“the law of his God is in his heart, NONE OF HIS STEPS SHALL SLIDE!”— Psa.37:31
The Word is the greatest force in the universe! Why? Because the Word is the creative force of the whole universe.
Don’t do without the Word…