The Power of God's Word

If we believe that God’s Word does not have power, than what is the purpose of reading God's Word?  We must first establish it's ultimate power.  Hebrews 4:12 says,

“For the word of God is living and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the division of soul and spirit, and of joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.”

Because Scripture is the breath of God, Who is living, it is a book unlike any other.  It has the power to work mightily.  Admittedly, this whole living-word idea is a little beyond our knowledge, but understand this, the Word of God holds power.  I have read testimony after testimony of how the Word of God changed the life of an individual.  Men who have walked into a hotel room, with suicidal thoughts, have come out eager to share about the transforming power of Jesus Christ.  All this through reading the Bible that a hotel room provides.

Just as God’s Word has the power to save us, according to Romans 1:16 (“For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God to salvation for everyone who believes, for the Jew first and also for the Greek), it also has the power to transform us into the image of His Son, through purging the sin in our lives.

Look at the story of Jonah for example.  All Jonah has to tell the people of Nineveh is, “Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown!” and because this was the message given to him by God Himself, the entire nation believes God proclaimed a fast and put on sackcloth, even before the king commanded them.  No ordinary words would have had the power to change a wicked and rebellious nation the way God’s Words did.  God’s Word, combined with the power of the Holy Spirit working in the hearts of people can do anything.

God’s Word, as Hebrews 4:12 shows us, is more powerful than a two-edged sword.  I do not know about you, but I bet I could conquer a bunch of giants with such a weapon by my side.  These giants of sin that have come up in our life are undefeatable on our own, with just our bare hands.  But if we pick up the weapon that is more deadly than a two-edged sword, our enemy sin does not stand a chance.

Jeremiah 23:29 says, “‘Is not My word like a fire?’ says the Lord, ‘And like a hammer that breaks the rock in pieces?’”

God’s Word is like a fire.  It can start out small, with only a verse or two, but then it grows and grows, devouring all the sin that is in it’s path.  It burns evil doings like a great wildfire burns a whole forest to nothing but ashes.

God’s Word is like a hammer.  Think of the power that it takes to use a hammer to break a rock.  If God’s Word is the hammer, than God is the Hammerer, and His amazing power, combined with such a tool as His very words, has the power to shatter something as hard as a rock.  On our own strength, we cannot break the sin that fills our hearts and minds.  But if we allow God to pick up His hammer and use it on the wickedness that inhabits us, we can be set free.  You see, God’s Word has unimaginable power.

Isaiah 55:10-11 climaxes the power of the Scriptures:

“For as the rain comes down, and the snow from heaven,
     And do not return there,
But water the earth,
     And make it bring forth and bud,
That it may give seed to the sower
     And bread to the eater,
So shall My word be that goes forth from My mouth;
     It shall not return to Me void,
But it shall accomplish what I please,
     And it shall prosper in the thing for which I sent it.”

Whatever God wishes, His Word can accomplish.  It will not return void.  If God says that His Word has the power to break the rocks of sin, then it will do that.  God’s Word is powerful!

Think of it.  God’s words created everything you see around you, the grass, trees, sky, everything!  With simply a word, all things came into existence.  If the word of God has that much power, does it not also have the power to transform our lives?

Finally, Acts 20:32 adds, "And now I commend you to God and to the word of his grace, which is able to build you up and to give you the inheritance among all those who are sanctified."  What has the power to build us up? What can gain us an inheritance among the sanctified?  God can, working through the Holy Scriptures.

If you continue to doubt that the Word of God has the power to pierce us and change our lives, I challenge you to pick up the Bible right now.  Begin at Genesis and continue through to the book of Revelation.  Until you finish reading through the Bible, watch no TV, visit no Facebook or social media, listen to no music, and read no books.  Devote yourself entirely to the Bible.  And when you are finished, then I will ask you, “Does the Word of God hold the power to change your life?”