Day Sixty-Four
What Kind of House are You?
“In the beginning [before all time] was the Word (Christ), and the Word was with God, and the Word was God Himself.” John 1:1 Amp
If there was a direct correlation between how much of the Word of God dwells in us, and what we looked like from an architectural sense – some of us would be palatial estates, some mansions, some houses, some of us mud huts, while with others it would be an exaggeration to call them a cardboard box. Unfortunately, this limitation is not attributable to any lack from God – but it is in fact a lack with us. It is directly the result of us not perceiving the Word in its fullness, but rather parsing this Word and marginalizing it so that its impact is lessened. We indeed, as has been often said, have as much of God as we desire.
My hope is that you will be provoked here to have a glimpse of what has been truly given to you and that there will be a corresponding expansion in us of all that the Word affords.
Let us begin by searching what the term “Logos” actually means from the Greek. Strongs #3056 renders logos as: “something said, (incl. the thought); by impl. a topic (subject of discourse), also reasoning (the mental faculty) or motive; by extens. a computation; spec. (with the art. In John) the Divine Expression (i.e. Christ); — account, cause, communication, x concerning, doctrine, fame”,…etc.
As “account” is one of the descriptors above, let us examine that from a purely monetary sense as it relates to receiving the Word. Say someone gives you a monetary gift as a check for one-hundred dollars. How we fail to take in the fullness of the Word would be comparable to you only depositing $25 of that check and losing the rest of the assets. We would readily understand the foolishness of that, yet we fail to see the parallel foolishness of not apprehending the fullness of the provision of the Word of God.
Like an old movie script once said, “What we have here is a failure to communicate!” (Good quote – awful movieJ). So how do we obtain all that was provided and intended by God from His Word? The short answer is increasingly by faith to faith.
Each of us is first given a measure of faith so that by faith we can receive by hearing the Word. As that initial faith is exercised and used by us, it grows and can receive more. As we are changed by the Word (through repentance) and believe and obey it, it makes deeper inroads into us, renewing out mind, making straight even our posture and attitudes of thinking and the heart. We are becoming Christ-like and changing from glory to glory.
Bottom-line, we grow from simply hearing the Word, to becoming doers of the Word. The Word has renewed us at a fundamental level (think DNA), and we are forever changed. Though it is not just hearing and agreeing with the Word that we hear — it is becoming so aligned with the Word and yielded to that Word, that it is being walked out in me and through me.
This is not some ethereal aesthetic valuation of the Word. It is fundamentally an embracing of the Truth of the Word and all the many layers of meaning that we don’t initially see intellectually. It is embracing by faith a deposit of Truth that I don’t have the mental power to authenticate as real. But the Holy Spirit in me validates Its authenticity in the spirit!
Look at this example. One of my favorites, Matthew 4:4: “…Man shall not live and be upheld and sustained by bread alone, but by every word that comes forth from the mouth of God.” Every word that has come from the mouth of God is embodied in Christ. The Strong’s Logos definition called the “Divine Expression” — Christ. Christ is the thought of God. He is the motive, the discourse and reasoning of God. He is the cause, and the doctrine, and the fame of God! I love in Hebrews 1:3 where is describes Jesus, the Son of God as the sole expression of the glory of God, the very out-raying radiance of the divine! He is God’s very thumbprint! Jesus Christ is the method and substance of the way God has chosen to present and manifest Himself to us! He is the physical embodiment of God the Father, presented to us!
So when it comes to embracing the fullness of God, I best not parse it out according to what I like, or what I want to be true, or what I want to be accountable for. In fact I better realize that I have come face to face with a Truth that I not only can’t control, but Truth that overwhelms, and overcomes, like a tsunami of Grace it runs through me at every level imaginable. If … I will choose to believe and receive.
If I choose not, God will not force me, but I will be left like a house partially refurbished, foundation restored, but lacking any real living space to recommend it, unable to be a shelter or to give shelter. This becomes the end of those who seek to limit the vastness of the blessing of God that is delivered by the agency of His Word — His Son’s life in us.
Back then to Matthew 4:4, what is the Truth of how I live? I live not by food or natural substance alone. I live not by status, or monetary power. I live not even by the perceived value or impact of my life and its merits. No, I live and am upheld and sustained by every single word, every utterance brought to earth by Jesus and spoken by Him, every promise that He has delivered to us (which are all yes and amen in Him)! They nourish me, sustain me and fulfill me, and change me as I take them in by faith and eat of them.
We have been provided a diet of the Word of God that feeds us not just for this realm of the physical, but we have been provided food from the Kingdom of God – that we may live according to the order of that Kingdom even while yet here on earth. There is nothing we lack for life or godliness. Hunger then for all the fullness of God and what He has already given us!
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