The Word

When I first went to High School, rather a lot of years ago, it was usual for all schools to have a religious assembly each morning before lessons. The assembly usually started with a rousing hymn and a scripture reading then followed. Sadly I don’t remember taking note of much that was being taught; I hadn’t read a bible or had any Christian teaching at home so it all seemed very irrelevant to my life. Only a few of the readings registered anything much in my easily distracted teenage mind. However one reading that did register was the opening verses from John’s gospel.

But there was a problem …The Word was obviously something important but I didn’t know what the Word was. I remember wondering if it was a secret magic word, like abracadabra. I wondered if perhaps only a very few people knew it. I surmised that ordinary people like me probably couldn’t know about such a Word. I was too embarrassed to ask anyone for more information and so every time I heard these verses I just went on wondering and no-one gave me an explanation. But somehow these words never quite went away…they lodged inside me... they impacted me somewhere as important, even though I didn’t understand them at all.

It was years before I understood the powerful truth, which seems so very obvious to me now, that the Word is Jesus. He is the ‘logos’ of God. He is the full and complete expression of the spoken and unspoken completeness of God, His intentions, plans and purposes. Jesus was there from the beginning; Jesus is God.

It is strange that I was drawn to these words and they seemed to affect my heart even when I didn’t understand them and as a teenager no had no real inclination to discover more. The words alone touched my heart. It was as if they had power to awaken something inside me even when I had no way of rationally comprehending them.

It makes me realise how powerful the written Word of God is and how it can work in people’s heart even when they can’t understand with their intellect, or even seem disinterested or indifferent. So let’s continue to read and preach the Word of God ‘in season and out of season’ (2 Timothy 4:2). The seeds sown may take years to come to fruitfulness but God’s word never returns void (Isaiah 55:11).

Prayer: Father, we thank You for sending Jesus, Your Word, to give us a full and perfect representation of Yourself, Your ways and Your purposes. Thank You for John, the gospel writer and dear friend of Jesus, and for the Holy Spirit who inspired John’s words that have touched so many hearts down the years. Please continue to use Your written Word in the Holy Bible to touch our hearts and to bring revelation to us as we read and share with others Your profound truths, day by day… We pray this in Jesus’ mighty name. Amen.