Just say the Word, Lord

For sixteen years before Christ came into my life, I read the Bible almost every day. My mother sat down each morning with her Bible, and at thirteen, I started this habit also. I couldn’t understand what it said, but I thought that this is what I was supposed to do.

Many times I am thankful to my mother for her example. After I became a Christian, daily devotions were easy for me. At times I’ve reduced this to a ritual in the same way they were for so many years, but not often. As I hear God speak to my heart and experience His work in my life, I’m eager to spend time with Him every morning.

In fact, I cannot go forward until I hear from God each day. His Word is powerful and as my father used to say, “heals whatever ails you.” Psalm 107:17-21 describes this process:

Fools, because of their transgression, and because of their iniquities, were afflicted. Their soul abhorred all manner of food, and they drew near to the gates of death. Then they cried out to the Lord in their trouble, and He saved them out of their distresses. He sent His word and healed them, and delivered them from their destructions. Oh, that men would give thanks to the Lord for His goodness, and for His wonderful works to the children of men!

Typically a person waits until they are at the end of their rope to call out to God, and that is what the psalmist describes. How much better to call on Him every day. When He sends His Word, it not only heals whatever ails my spirit, but strengthens my heart and gives me courage to face whatever the day may bring. It also gives me energy, because as I talk back to Him, I feel all my weights and concerns lifted. I know He is in charge and He will take care of everything.

Today’s devotional reading in Ears from Harvested Sheaves is so good that I’m just going to read it again and rejoice that first thing each morning all I need to do, and all I want to do, is call on the Lord. The reading (slightly edited) says:

What an effect a word from God can produce! Be it in reading; in hearing; on the knees; or in secret meditation; when a word drops from the Lord’s mouth with any divine power into the soul, what a change it produces! And nothing but this divine power can ever bring a poor sinner out of his miserable condition. When this comes, it does the work in a moment; it heals all the wounds which sin has made, and repairs all the breaches in the conscience that folly has produced. One word from God heals them all. The Lord does not come as it were with bandages to heal first one sore and then another. He heals now as in the days of His flesh. When he healed then, he healed fully, at once, completely.
The earthly doctor heals by degrees; he puts a bandage on one sore, and liniment on another; and heals one by one. But when the Lord heals, it is done in a moment. The balm of Gilead flows over all the wounds, heals them up, and makes them perfectly whole. It is then with the soul as with the woman with the issue of blood; “she felt in her body she was healed of that plague.”
And this is healing! Any testimony from God, really from God, does it in a moment. If you can get but one word from God into your soul to make you believe you are a child of God, and interested in His pardoning love and mercy, every wound, though there be a million, yet, every wound will be healed instantaneously. This is the only healing worth having. To be healed by evidences is like being healed by bandages. You want an evidence here, and an evidence there, as a man that has his body full of sores wants a bandage upon every wound.
But one word from God is the real panacea, the true, the only “heal-all” and Jesus (who is the Living Word) the only true infallible Physician. To be healed completely, you must look to the Lord.

Amen!