ACTIVE AND OPERATIVE

ACTIVE, OPERATIVE, ENERGIZING, AND EFFECTIVE

Heb.4:12 For the Word that God speaks is alive and full of power [making it active, operative, energizing, and effective]; it is sharper than any two-edged sword, penetrating to the dividing line of the breath of life (soul) and [the immortal] spirit, and of joints and marrow [of the deepest parts of our nature], exposing and sifting and analyzing and judging the very thoughts and purposes of the heart.

God’s Word is said to be alive. I love the way this verse reads in the Amplified Bible, “For the Word that God speaks…” God is always speaking. One of the most common yet powerful ways The Lord speaks to us is through His written words. He will take a scripture verse and apply it directly and personally to our own lives by His Spirit. Actually this is probably the most common way The Lord speaks to His people. Paul actually received Isa.42:6 as a personal word to himself. “I, the LORD, have called You in righteousness, and will hold Your hand; I will keep You and give You as a covenant to the people, as a light to the Gentiles.” Of course the verse was speaking about Israel and ultimately the church but The Lord spoke this verse to Paul as a personal word to bring direction to his life. Here is something Henry said about the power of His Word.

“It is powerful. When God sets it home by his Spirit, it convinces powerfully, converts powerfully, and comforts powerfully. It is so powerful as to pull down strong hold, to raise the dead, to make the deaf to hear, the blind to see, the dumb to speak, and the lame to walk. It is powerful to batter down Satan’s kingdom, and to set up the kingdom of Christ upon the ruins thereof. It is sharper than any two-edged sword; it cuts both ways; it is the sword of the Spirit. It is the two-edged sword that cometh out of the mouth of Christ.”

The Word of God carries the power of God, when it is received, it fulfills God’s purposes in our life. Here Is Barnes on the same verse.

“Its power is seen in awakening the conscience; alarming the fears; laying bare the secret feelings of the heart; and causing the sinner to tremble with the apprehension of the coming judgment. All the great changes in the moral world for the better, have been caused by the power of truth. They are such as the truth in its own nature is fitted to effect; and, if we may judge of its power by the greatness of the revolutions produced, no words can over-estimate the might of the truth which God has revealed.”

We should never take lightly the written word. It is more than a handbook, way more. When the Word of God becomes personal to us, literally all things become possible.