On This Day: To Delight in Jesus Speaking His Word

And when he returned to Capernaum after some days, it was reported that he was at home. And many were gathered together, so that there was no more room, not even at the door. And he was preaching the word to them. (Mark 2:1-2)

   When God speaks through his word, the Bible, there are two contexts I always have in mind. The first is the context of the Scripture I am reading. No matter how personally God applies his word to me, I never want to take it out of context or manipulate it to say things it doesn’t say or mean things it doesn’t mean. Anything that would make it MY word instead of GOD’s word steals what God will do through his word, not mine.

   But the other context is my life. Reading the Bible as God’s word is personal. Every day I learn things that apply to anything I am going through. When I first clued in to this about 32 years ago, God used one of the most painful seasons of my life to prove this to me, that his word truly is as “living and active” as his word claims (Hebrews 4:12).

   So, when it stood out to me this morning that Jesus spoke “the word to them”, I immediately felt both desperation and delight. The delight was that whatever Jesus was teaching was “the word”. The desperation was to know the word Jesus taught because I truly want to live “by every word that comes from the mouth of God’” (Matthew 4:4). And when Jesus spoke, that WAS coming from the mouth of God because Jesus is “the Word”![1]

   Jesus’ reply to the devil in Matthew 4:4 is particularly fascinating because we have Jesus as “the Word” emphasizing “every word” that comes from the mouth of God by using a Scripture from “the word” we now call the Old Testament where God was urging his people to live by “every word” he spoke to them. Methinks this means that “the word” we have in the Scriptures, the Bible, is the only way to live!

   I often find myself revisiting the verse I quoted from Isaiah 66:2, “But this is the one to whom I will look: he who is humble and contrite in spirit and trembles at my word.” This verse itself should cause us to tremble at the word of God. The Almighty God looks over the whole of our universe from his existence within the whole of eternity. And yet he wants us to know that he also looks on an individual who is humble and contrite in spirit before him. He knows when we tremble at his word like a child marvelling at the infinite wonders of the greatest treasure in the whole wide world. And this is the most mindbogglingly wonderful thought in the world!

   That is how I felt when the spotlight fell on Jesus speaking “the word” to people. His word is life. His word is what we have in the Bible. We can live by every word that came from the mouth of God then, and that comes from the mouth of God as the Spirit teaches and reminds us of what is written.

   This suddenly reminds me that God first made me aware that I was “one to whom I will look” in 1965ish when I was seven years old. I looked up to the eastern sky over Sandspit, BC, and knew God was looking down on me. From there I heard his word knowing it was his. I came to trust in Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior. 

   And my testimony of growing up in my Savior is that “faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ” (Romans 10:17), so let us continue listening to Jesus preaching “the word” to our souls, and live by whatever he teaches us each day. Someone needs to see us doing this.

 

© 2024 Monte Vigh ~ Box 517, Merritt, BC, V1K 1B8

Email: in2freedom@gmail.com

Unless otherwise noted, Scriptures are from the English Standard Version (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version. ESV® Text Edition: 2016. Copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers.) 

---

[1] When we read anything to do with Jesus preaching and teaching “the word”, we are invited to picture it like “the Word” is speaking “the word”. John began his gospel with, 

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made. In him was life, and the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it. (John 1:1-5) 

Jesus himself is “the Word”, the “image of God” who makes the Father known, so when we read “the word” he taught, we are to live by it as much as the Israelites were to live by the words of Yahweh in the Old Testament.