THE WORDS AND THE LIFE
“No one ever spoke like this man!”
John 7:46
When Christ came, He enlightened the world with the breath of heaven. His “Life is the light of men” (John 1:4). His Life in us is the only hope for this ever-darkening world. More importantly, His Life through us is the wisdom of God. This fragile earthen vessel is the means He has chosen to reveal His grace.
“For we preach not ourselves, but Christ Jesus the Lord; and ourselves your servants for Jesus’ sake. For God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellency of the power may be of God, and not of us.”
2 Corinthians 4:5-7
Discipleship is the placing of our life into His hands. Our words without His breath, His Spirit, and His Life are powerless and ineffective. There is a life of confinement, a place of discipline and circumspection, through which we discover the unction and the power of the Holy Spirit. We are afforded glimpses in the scriptures of the early disciples as they grew in their sensitivity to His leading. This was no casual affair of their hearts with Him; He became the center and core of their lives. They walked in the “breath” of God and from this place of abiding they spoke the Words of God.
“He that speaketh of himself seeketh his own glory: but he that seeketh His glory that sent him, the same is true, and no unrighteousness is in him.”
John 7:18
Words without life produce lives without change; it is the bane of religion. His Spirit alone can affect the human condition. Without the placing of ourselves into His hands we will remain unfit and unprepared for His work on the earth. Like the loaves and the fishes in the hands of the young boy, we will remain insufficient to feed the multitude. It is only in our being broken and blessed in His hands that He takes the weak things to confound the wise, and the inconsequential to bring the power and glory of Jesus to this lost world.
“They profess to know God, but they deny him by their works.
They are detestable, disobedient, unfit for any good work”
Titus 1:16
In our submission to Him, we are made fit and able for His work. Left to ourselves, we are bereft of the ability to make Him known. He is our inspiration and Life; we are but the vessel through which His light shines. We are simply the filament in a light bulb. Without His power flowing through us, there is no intrinsic ability to shine. In Christ alone, we live.
“Not that we are sufficient in ourselves to claim anything as coming from us, but our sufficiency is from God, who has made us sufficient to be ministers of a new covenant, not of the letter but of the Spirit.”
2 Corinthians 3:5-6
_________________
“Pray to God, ‘You are the Spirit, and I am only the trumpet,
and without your breath, I can give no sound”
Joseph of Cupertino
Brian Troxel
