Word of Life
My child, be attentive to my words;
incline your ear to my sayings.
Do not let them escape from your sight;
keep them within your heart.
For they are life to those who find them,
and healing to all their flesh.
Keep your heart with all vigilance,
for from it flow the springs of life.
Proverbs 4:20-23
God’s holy words are life to those who find them, and healing to their bodies. His holy word is life and healing. Because God love us and He wants us to enjoy our best possible life and life springs from His holy word, He urges us to focus on His holy word and to listen to His words and to keep them in our hearts. He loves us and because we love Him, we keep His Holy word.
We know from the first chapter of Genesis that God’s word is powerful – He spoke the heavens and earth into existence out of nothing. He created all matter comprising the universe by speaking, and He formed order from chaos by speaking. His words effectuate results. Whereas our words are mere vehicles of communication conveying thoughts, which may lead to action, God’s words are much more than mere vehicles of communication, they are power, they are life, they are healing. His words live and act.
We also know that Jesus is the Word who is life and light, who makes God known (see John 1:1-18), and who grants new life through the Holy Spirit. Jesus says,
“Very truly, I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God without being born of water and Spirit. What is born of the flesh is flesh, and what is born of the Spirit is spirit. Do not be astonished that I said to you, ‘You must be born from above.’ The wind blows where it chooses, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.” John 3:5-8
Those who are born of the Holy Spirit are eligible to enter the kingdom of God because they have gained new life. They have been born anew, born from above, transformed. They have gained spiritual life and all its associated gifts such as wholeness, peace and rest. The Holy Spirit blows where He chooses, conveying new life through Christ Jesus, the Word. Scripture provides many illustrations of lives transformed through God’s holy word. As one example, let’s consider King Josiah.
Manasseh ruled as king in Jerusalem for fifty-five years, and he performed acts of great evil. He erected altars to other gods inside the Lord’s temple. He constructed worship sites to other gods across Israel, sacrificed his own son while worshiping other gods, “practiced soothsaying and augury, and dealt with mediums and with wizards” (2 Kings 21:6), and led the entire nation to follow his evil acts. After his fifty-five-year reign, his twenty-two-year-old son, Amon, succeeded him, and continued his father’s path for two years before his servants murdered him. For much of fifty-seven years, God’s holy word was hidden and forgotten.
Josiah was eight years old when he succeeded Amon, his father, as king. His grandfather and father undoubtedly influenced in his early upbringing, and they led the entire nation in evil practices. When he was twenty-six years old, Josiah asked the high priest to collect all the money stored in the house of the Lord and give it to carpenters and masons to repair the property. While gathering the money, the high priest located an old scroll, long hidden from view. The high priest gave the scroll to Josiah’s secretary, who read it to Josiah, and for the first time in his life, Josiah was exposed to God’s holy word.
As he listened to the word of God, he tore his clothes and wept and repented, and after listening, he sought counsel from people in the kingdom who knew God’s holy word. He was convicted and he acted in response to his conviction. He started by gathering all the elders together, reading God’s holy word to them, and publicly making a covenant with God to keep His decrees, and all the people who were gathered joined in the covenant.
Josiah removed from the Lord’s temple the evil altars and articles used to worship other gods and destroyed them. He then traveled the nation destroying temples set up for other gods, and when he returned to Jerusalem, he reinstituted the Passover. God’s holy word says,
Before him there was no king like him, who turned to the Lord with all his heart, with all his soul, and with all his might, according to all the law of Moses; nor did any like him arise after him. 2 Kings 23:25
Josiah heard God’s holy word and it changed him. God’s holy word is power, it is powerful, it is life, and it heals. Through Josiah we see that as he was convicted and acted in response to the conviction, and the nation healed, came to life, and experienced light. Through God’s holy word, they were transformed. (Josiah is presented in 2 Kings 22-23 and 2 Chronicles 34-35.)
Josiah’s conviction led to change. This is significant, because we often feel conviction and then go about our lives as normal, missing the reason for our conviction. Have you ever listened to a sermon and felt God tugging at your heart, knowing you should change your life, and then you leave church, go to lunch, and forget all about it? Or perhaps you experience the Holy Spirit convicting you as you read Scripture or pray or listen to music, but fail to act on it? Josiah experienced the Holy Spirit’s conviction as he heard the word of God, and he acted on it, and he was transformed, and the nation was transformed.
The passage from Proverbs first set forth above says that God’s holy words “are life to those who find them, and healing to all their flesh.” God’s holy words are life. The words are alive, living and life, providing wholeness, peace and satisfaction to those who find them. They are healing. God’s holy words are medicine, the cure, deliverance for spirits, souls and bodies who find them. They are healing to all their flesh. God’s holy words are power, and they are powerful.
Jesus is the Word. He is life. We gain faith by hearing His word (see Romans 10:17) and faith is empowering. Through Christ Jesus we gain new life and the Holy Spirit takes up residence within us, transforming our spirits, souls and bodies. And we receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon us (see Acts 1:8).
His holy word is life and healing to those who find it, and not only spiritual healing, rather total, physical and spiritual wholeness. In what tangible ways have you experienced God’s holy, healing word of life? How has your life been transformed by and through Him?
May you receive the fullness, the wholeness, the abundance of His new life, may your eyes be enlightened, may your spirit, soul and body receive His healing, now and forever. Amen.