The Word of God is alive and percolates and works in you

Perhaps we can be disappointed or a little bit in despair about this, because we think that if we are going to be changed by the Word of God, then it will be a transformation that is abrupt and sudden and flashy, whereas that change might actually occur in a more gradual and solid way. It may not be striking in its speed, but the Word of God does work change in his people (1 Thessalonians 2:13). When Paul said to those believers in Thessalonica how happy he was that when they received the Word of God and the gospel, you did not receive it as the word of men but as it really is, the Word of God, then he said this, which is always at work in you who believe: in other words, which keeps working in you who believe. That is an interesting idea. Have you ever thought of that? That the Word of God in the gospel or in the Scriptures is something that is alive and percolates and works always among you who believe, working obedience and change and shaping you into the likeness of Jesus. Well, that is what Paul says: that it is working in you who believe. I think we need to hear this point: that the Word of God really does change God’s people, because sometimes we can get so much on the other side, that it is almost as if sometimes we can get to the point that we can say, Well, I know the Word of God teaches that, but I can never do that. Some of us are so convinced of our own inability, and we realize that without Christ we can do nothing, and we realize something of our own sinfulness. But sometimes that is the only side we see of things in the Christian life and we fail to see this other side - that it is possible for God's people to obey God's Word.

It was on Veterans Day this year that Barbara and I were going out to get some things. You expect banks and post offices to be closed on that day, but we were going to the Teachers Resource Center, and we did not know if the businesses would be open. As we drove up there I looked at a door and I saw this sign that said Closed, Thanksgiving. I said, Well, there's no use going in there; it says closed. For some reason my wife decided to try it anyway and so she walked over to the door to try it and walked right in! I thought about that and then it dawned on me: I really did read the words Closed, Thanksgiving, but the only word that registered was closed. It did not say anything about Veterans Day but I thought it just meant closed. There are some people that are so negative like that. They see something like that, and that is the only side of anything they see. You can be like that in your Christian life. You can see the effects of sin, and that is good. Sometimes it seems like you have to spend most of your time trying to get some of the Lord's people to see what sinners they are. But there are some of you that know that all too well. And we can forget there is this other side, that there is the Word of God that keeps working among you who believe, and it works obedience, and we need to know that. We are not locked into a hopeless spiral of disobedience to God's requirements. The Word of God changes us.¹

Dale Ralph Davis