For the word of God is living and active. Hebrews 4:12
The Spirit gives life; the flesh counts for nothing. The words I have spoken to you are spirit and they are life. John 6:63

The two verses above speak about God’s word. The text from the book of Hebrews describes it as living and active. The Greek word translated as “living” means that it contains its own vitality. It is as much alive as humans or plants or animals. The fact that it is living suggests that it grows and bears fruit. The parable of the soils (Lk.8:4) that Jesus taught, compared the word of God to seed that would bear tremendous fruit if planted in fertile soil. Just as one seed produces much more than itself, , the word of God produces much more than itself.

The Greek word that is translated “active” means more than just moving around or animation. It is a word that means something is surging with energy in a way that significantly impacts its environment. It indicates that something alive and powerful is moving and accomplishing a divine purpose in both natural and the supernatural realm. This definition takes the word of God far beyond information to be simply transmitted or principles to be learned. It is much more than a philosophy of life. While we study the word, meditate on it, and quote it, we can be sure that something is at work in the unseen realm that is fulfilling that word in ways we may or may not be aware of. It may be accomplishing something in us or something external to us that the spiritual realm is operating on.

The second verse from above was spoken by Jesus and adds to our understanding. Jesus declared that his words are spirit and they are life. What does it mean that his words are spirit? I believe they are spirit in two senses. First of all, his words originated in the spiritual realm. While on earth, Jesus still operated as a citizen of heaven whose perspective was always anchored in heaven. In addition, he said that he spoke only what he heard his Father saying. To his disciples he said, “Don’t you believe that I am in the Father, and that the Father is in me? The words I say to you are not just my own. Rather, it is the Father, living in me, who is doing his work” (Jhn.14:10). His words flowed from the spiritual realm to the natural realm, not the other way around. When Jesus spoke the words of the Father, they went forth guaranteed to fulfill the Father’s purpose. It is the same when we, as children of God, declare his word.

Secondly, they came to him from the Father via the Holy Spirit. Jesus declared that the Spirit gives life. As they came from the Father through the Spirit, they were infused with the life-giving power of the Spirit. God declared to Isaiah, “As the rain and the snow come down from heaven, and do not return to it without watering the earth and making it bud and flourish, so that it yields seed for the sower and bread for the eater, so is my word that goes out from my mouth: It will not return to me empty, but will accomplish what I desire and achieve the purpose for which I sent it” ( Isa.55:10-11).

That is how the word of God becomes living and active (Heb.4:12). As his words are broadcast, they are infused with spiritual power by the Spirit of God. They activate something in the spiritual realm that fulfills God’s purpose as in those words as they impact the natural realm. As a result, the words of Jesus created life in various forms. For some it was spiritual life. Men were born again in response to the gospel. For others, it was physical life. Thousands were healed and physically restored and some were literally raised from the dead. For others, emotional life was imparted to them as broken hearts were healed. And for even more, life was restored as men and women were set free from their bondage to demons and addictions. His words imparted life because his words carried authority and were infused with the same power that created the universe through the words of God.

But what about today? How is the word activated? There is life in a seed – enough to grow a giant redwood – but that life is not manifested until it is planted and watered. The word of God rests on the pages of a Bible or in the heart of a believer. It may do a work in the believer but not in the world that surrounds the believer until it is activated. It is activated when it is spoken or declared with faith. Throughout scripture, God deposited his word in the hearts of his prophets and empowered those words when they were proclaimed. Moses declared each plague before Pharaoh and then God produced each one. He put his words in the mouth of Jeremiah and as Jeremiah declared that word over nations, those words came to pass. I have heard today’s prophets put it this way –   prophetic words don’t tell the future, they create it.

God’s word is filled with power and purpose. When we pray it or declare it, those words go forth alive and energized by the Spirit to produce more life and fulfill their purpose. When we speak healing, hope, provision, or peace over a person or ourselves, we should believe by faith that something is going to happen because the word has been activated and is filled with God’s energy and purpose. When we declare his word by faith, the fuse is lit and power will be released at the proper time.

Read the word, hear the word, pray the word, write the word and declare the word. When we partner with God, he will honor his word. What situation do you need to be declaring the word of God over right now? Find your scripture and activate it in your life or in the life of someone you know by faith.

About twenty years ago, a small book was published by Bruce Wilkinson entitled The Prayer of Jabez. It swept through the Christian community as a model of prayer and influenced numbers of believers in the way they prayed. However, I have heard little about that short prayer in the last fifteen years. I was reminded of Jabez and his prayer recently and wanted to mention it in my blog.

The text of 1 Chronicles 4 says, Jabez was more honorable than his brothers. His mother had named him Jabez, saying, “I gave birth to him in pain.” Jabez cried out to the God of Israel, “Oh, that you would bless me and enlarge my territory! Let your hand be with me, and keep me from harm so that I will be free from pain.” And God granted his request. (1 Ch.4:9-10).

The remarkable things about this verse is that Jabez is mentioned in a genealogical list of hundreds of names, of which only a few are said to have done anything of note. Either his prayer prompted God to call him more honorable than his brothers or his more honorable character prompted the prayer.

My focus is actually more on the man than the prayer. Notice that his mother named him Jabez because she gave birth to him in pain. The most obvious understanding of her words is that he was a very difficult birth and that he had been a source of severe pain to her. As you know, Hebrew names often had prophetic undertones in terms of what a child would be like. Jacob meant deceiver and that is what he was until he encountered God. Jabez could have easily deduced that he would forever be a source of pain to his mother and those around him. Perhaps, his brothers often reminded him that he was “a real pain.” However, I sense that Jabez came to believe God determined his destiny and not his mother or his brothers.

Too many of us have had parents speak negative words and failure over us and have taken them on as our identity rather than taking what God has spoken over us as our identity and destiny. I have known many believers, myself included, who were criticized, demeaned, and declared worthless by a parent. They have all had difficulty overcoming the negative self-image that was ingrained in them by those words. We may have also looked at the negative outcomes of a parent’s life and believed that we would end up the same. I have also known several men whose fathers died in their fifties of heart complications and these sons grew up believing that they too would die young. Fortunately, by faith, they came to believe that God established their destiny and their date of departure, not their parents. Each of these men have long outlived their fathers age. Others have seen their parents divorce, do drugs, or spend time in prison and have believed that their destiny was to follow in their parent’s footsteps. God says different.

It is possible that the prayer of Jabez was more honorable or noble (some versions) than his brothers because it reflected his faith that God determined his destiny rather than his mother or any man. His prayer of faith was that God would bless him so he could be a blessing to others rather than a source of pain. He also asked for more territory to extend his influence for good, Our true real estate in this life is our influence for the kingdom of God. The more we bless others, the more influence we gain. He asked God to direct his steps and to keep him from the pain his mother had prophesied. God gladly answered his prayer.

Our prayer should be for God’s identity to settle into our hearts and for our lives to fulfill the purposes he has established for us. Psalm 139 declares that everyday ordained for us was written in his book before one of them came to pass. It is the nature of a good father to desire blessing, fruitfulness, and health for his children. Whatever destiny God has written in his book for us would be a rich life in which we are blessed so that we can be a blessing to others. By faith we need to claim that life rather than some limited, broken, life of disappointment.

Our prayers reflect our expectations for God and for ourselves. Let’s pray honorable prayers that honor God as a good father who wants the best for his children and for his children to live exceptional lives worthy of a child of God full of influence and blessings for those we touch! That is a prayer God is willing to answer!

There are six things the Lord hates, seven that are detestable to him: haughty eyes, a lying tongue, hands that shed innocent blood, a heart that devises wicked schemes, feet that are quick to rush into evil, a false witness who pours out lies and a person who stirs up conflict in the community. Proverbs 6:16-19

We all embrace the revelation that God is love. We focus on that in our sermons, in our group, in our books, and especially in our evangelism. We should focus on love because it is the greatest gift and most defining thing about our God. We focus on that truth so much that it sounds almost sacreligious to talk about God hating anyone or anything. The truth is, however, that scripture talks about God hating things in numerous places. The proverb quoted above is one of those texts. The original language means hate in the same sense that we mean hate – an intense disliking, a strong aversion, a strong rejection of, etc.

God hates these things because they are contrary to his nature and are contrary to love. He hates these things because they are destructive. I don’t want to go into a discussion of each of the items God hates, but I want to very briefly remind us that if we are going to be godly (God-like) we must not only love what he loves, but hate what he hates. We must have a strong aversion, an intense dislike, and a steadfast rejection of the same things that God rejects.

Our challenge is we live in a culture that preaches tolerance as if tolerance is the only virtue. We live in a culture that defines any opposition to any kind of lifestyle as hate speech. We live in a culture that has taken the idea of sinful behaviors or evil thoughts and has morphed it into the idea of being a disease (that someone has no control over) or simply an alternative lifestyle that you don’t have to adopt but you must accept others who adopt it without objection. This is the cultural moment where we begin to declare that good things are bad and bad things are good. In our culture, we are very close to the point where the only sin is standing up for a righteous standard. We have come to a place in some parts of America and Canada where simply reading passages of scripture in church can now be defined as hate speech and can be cause for criminal prosecution.

In a culture that pressures us to give up the notion of absolute truth (versus personal truth) and that pressures us to accept nearly any kind of deviant behavior, it is easy for us to become “tolerant” too. Instead of being offended or shocked by certain behaviors or instead of hating the behavior and calling it sin, we may simply take on an attitude that the behavior is distasteful or personally offensive. Once we start down that road, we lose our moral compass. Instead of certain behaviors being absolutely right or wrong, sinful or righteous, we step into a world of all gray where black and white no longer exist. We step into a world of personal preference or taste versus a world where God has clearly spoken and drawn lines between good and evil.

When we no longer feel any kind of indignation or anger toward the very things that God hates, we have begun to let our godliness slip away. When we find ourselves no longer offended by certain behaviors which culture approves, we know the constant drumbeat of sin around us has dulled our spiritual sensitivities. Like those who live next to railroad tracks, we learn to tune out the noise and the sin so that we no longer notice it. When we no longer speak out against these things as being wrong and intolerable, our hearts become “out-of-sync” with God’s heart. I’m not talking about hating people, but behaviors, because these will ultimately lead to the destruction of the individuals who practice them and the destruction of nations that tolerate them. Most of us would say we hate cancer, especially if we have lost loved ones to its diabolical destruction of the body. We should hate the things that God hates with the same perspective because these things will also destroy.

The danger for most of us as believers, is that we simply lose our sensitivity to sin because we are surrounded by it day after day. It is normalized, it is celebrated, it is ignored, and it is approved of 24 hours a day on television and social media. It is hip. it is cool. It is the new morality. If you speak the truth about these things you will quickly be branded a hater, locked up in Facebook jail, and silenced at every opportunity. The prophets of Israel faced the same opposition when they spoke God’s truth and were actually blamed for all of Israel’s woes.

Elijah had such an encounter with Ahab, probably the most wicked king in Israel’s history. “Ahab went to meet Elijah. When he saw Elijah, he said to him, “Is that you, you troubler of Israel?” “I have not made trouble for Israel,” Elijah replied. “But you and your father’s family have. You have abandoned the Lord’s commands and have followed the Baals” (1 Kings 18:16-18). The judgments of God kept hammering Israel and the wicked blamed the righteous for all their calamities. It will be no different in our time. And yet, we must continue to hate what God hates without hating the people trapped in sin and deception. We must speak the truth to them and our culture in love..

I believe we must give some thought to our desensitization to sin so that we don’t become indifferent to sin rather than hating it. We have to watch our intake of television programs, movies, and social media where vulgar language, nudity, adultery, fornication, homosexuality, witchcraft, etc. are standard fare. These are things God hates. We feel as if we are unaffected by watching these thing because we don’t practice them. I think, however, if we are honest we are no longer repulsed by these things as we once were or we wouldn’t continue to watch them night after night. If we are honest, we disapprove but can we say we hate these things?

Perhaps, our prayers need to include a constant request that the Holy Spirit would once again restore our sensitivity to sin, our indignation towards those who promote such things, and our voice that pushes back on cultural norms that invite death and judgment. Of course, We should also ask God to teach us to love what he loves even more. As followers of Jesus, we must not only be lovers but haters as well…not of people, but of the sin that destroys people and nations. Lord will you match our hearts to yours so that we love what you love and hate what you hate.