One of Satan’s strategies is the illusion that scripture is only ink on paper like any other book in the library.  It is not uncommon for us all to forget that the Word is living and active…that it contains life and power when it is received and spoken by faith.  The moment we forget that scripture is the Word of God revealing himself to us, the Word begins to lose its transformative function in our lives.

I am currently reading a little commentary on the Book of Revelation by Eugene Peterson.  As he lays foundations for understanding the book, he reminds us that scripture is designed to awaken our senses and engage our imagination.  We should not read the gospels without imagining what the scenes of Jesus healing, raising the dead, walking on the waves of Galilee, and turning over the tables in the temple courtyard would look like, sound like, and smell like. If we simply read the passage as sterile facts like dates in a history book, we miss what God intends.  

I still remember American history classes in college. Two semesters were required.  I had one professor who showed up at the last minute and opened his loose-leaf notebook and read facts and dates to us for an hour and then left.  It was boring, mind-numbing, utterly forgettable.  It was so meaningless that I dropped the course thinking I would take it in a short summer semester where I might endure the class.  So, the following summer, I signed up under another professor.  This teacher made history come to life.  He told the back stories, the intrigues, and described the scenes so that we could place ourselves in the moment.  It wasn’t dates and facts.  It was people and life and uncertainty.  I was riveted.  I never missed a class and I remembered the lessons from history, not just the facts.

God intends for us to read scripture that way.   He wants us not just to engage our minds but all of our senses.  In the Book of Revelation, we are told of dragons and angels, trumpets, and thrones.  We are told of battles in the heavenlies and a golden city 1500 miles wide and high.  We are told of burning incense and prayers and scrolls flying through the air with writing.  As we read these things, we have the opportunity to imagine and to engage all of our senses.  In Revelation 1:3, John tells us, ”Blessed is the one who reads aloud the words of this prophecy and blessed are those who hear it…”  John invites us to take it off the page, read it aloud, hear it as we read it, and read it with meaning so that those who hear it are riveted.

This engagement of the senses is not just to make the Word more interesting, but when the mind and the senses are involved, it writes it on our heart in much deeper ways.  Think about it. The events and the moments you remember most in your life are anchored to the things you witnessed with your eyes, the smells associated with the event, the sounds you heard, the people that were there, you and the things you touched or that touched you.  Any similar sounds, smells, or feelings you experience in the present will take you back to the past in powerful ways like a song from your childhood.   The memory may be traumatic or full of goodness.  It may be in a hospital room, on a battlefield,  or in your grandmother’s kitchen at Christmas.  When the senses are involved, you don’t just remember it, you re-experience it. Intense experiences establish themselves in neural pathways in your brain that stay with you forever. 

Let me encourage you to take the time to make the Word come alive.  Read it aloud.  Engage your imagination asking the Spirit to direct your thoughts and reveal the pictures he wants you to see.  Let him sanctify your imagination. Imagine the scene, the smells, the sounds, the people. Place yourself there.  Read the Christmas story to your children or grandchildren and think about the long journey from Nazareth to Bethlehem.  What was the road like; what were the dangers; what would it be like to be in your ninth month making that pilgrimage? Imagine sleepy shepherds outside of Bethlehem, the smell of sheep, the sting of cold air, the tangible fear when angels appeared in the sky, the sound of their voices, or the frustration when a room was not available for a woman about to give birth?  What were the sounds and smells in the manger…a child being born, a young woman experiencing her first birth without family surrounding her, the smell and feel of straw, animals, and dampness? These were real people and real circumstances that God wants us to experience…not just facts to recount.  

Perhaps, this Christmas will be a great time to remember that the Word is living and active, the very word of God, and it written to stir our imaginations so that we never forget what God has revealed to us. 

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.