Let the Word Change You

March 8, 2010

Therefore lay apart all filthiness and the superfluity of wickedness, and receive with meekness the engrafted Word, which is able to save your souls. James 1:21
21st  Century KJV*

The Word has the ability to change you: save your soul, change your personality, heal, restore, deliver, and maximize fruit-bearing. To get results though, the Word must be engrafted into your life.

Once I visited a Washington state apple-grower. He grafted Fuji branches to his already established Red Delicious trees. To my surprise, he explained that the superior Fuji apples would grow from the grafting. When we receive God’s Word, better fruit is produced.

We get the Word in our lives by spending time pouring through its pages and meditating on what it has to say. When you and the Word are one, the devil can’t defeat you any more than he can defeat the Word of God. All the devil can do is try to hinder the engrafting process, try to trip us up and let the little foxes—the bitterness we hold on to, the “small” sins—come in and spoil the vine. (Song of Solomon 2:15).

Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself unless it abides in the vine, so neither can you unless you abide in Me. I am the vine, you are the branches; he who abides in Me and I in him, he bears much fruit, for apart from Me you can do nothing. These things I have spoken to you so that My joy may be in you, and that your joy may be made full. John 15:4-5, 11

Before you die, God wants to use you to do some extraordinary things. “The righteous man will flourish like the palm tree; he will grow like a cedar in Lebanon. Planted in the house of the Lord they will flourish in the courts of our God. They will still yield fruit in old age; they shall be full of sap and very green” (Psalm 92:12-14).

God has done a great work in you, but He wants to do a great work through you. You’ve got a part to play by keeping your heart with all diligence, by stopping sin in its beginning, by choosing the love walk over bitterness. Then you will yield quality fruit your entire life.

Press on!
Pastor Jeff

Copyright ©2010 St. Louis Family Church. All rights reserved. No part of this article may be reprinted or distributed in any form without prior written permission of St. Louis Family Church. Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture references are from the New American Standard Bible (NASB) Copyright © 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995 by The Lockman Foundation. *Scripture quotation taken from the 21st Century King James Version®, copyright © 1994. Used by permission of Deuel Enterprises, Inc., Gary, SD 57237. All rights reserved.