Throughout history a sword is known to have only two purposes: to preserve life and to take life.  In each case, the shedding of blood is intimately connected to the instrument.  Due to its life and death usage, it seems strange to some people that God would call His Word “the sword of the (Holy) Spirit?”  Some people reject the Old Testament because of “all that blood.”  A bastion of “the church” used those words while berating me for bringing up the ancient tome during our conversations.

However, when we consider the use God makes of His Word, the term “sword” is proven to be  appropriate in that by His Word we will all be judged (Jn. 12:44-50).  Man will live eternally or die eternally relative to his approach to God’s Word, which Jesus called His Word (Jn. 17:17).  Jesus also identified God’s Truth/Word as Himself: “I am the way, the Truth and the life” (Jn. 14:6).

Early on after answering God’s call on my life I was led by Him to the 119th Psalm.  I kept going back to it as I was led by the Lord.  That psalm is God’s Word about His Word.  I soon realized that the ministry God had called me to would direct people to His Word.  As I have said many times, EVERYTHING COMES BACK TO THE WORD.  For this reason I include the Scriptural reference for what I say and write.  I want people to go to God’s Word and read His will for themselves.  The Word of God gives us all we can know about Him.  In His Word God reveals Himself in written form.  Jesus–the Word made flesh–was God’s Word in human form.  In that we are spiritually what we take into our hearts (minds), when we immerse ourselves in His Word, believe it and obey it we become His Word in human form, just like our perfect example–Jesus of Nazareth who said: “He who has seen Me, has seen the Father” (Jn. 14:9).  When one “walks as Jesus walked” (1 Jn. 2:6) as we are commanded to do, one becomes God in human flesh as was Jesus.  But bear in mind, few people believed they were seeing the Father when they saw Jesus.  All but about 120 believed they were seeing Satan’s representative.

Our relationship with Jesus is directly tied to our relationship with His and His Father’s Words, which are the same.  He proclaimed this Truth in John 12:49 and 14:24 when He said that He had not spoken of His own accord, but that the Father that had sent Him: “… gave Me a commandment, telling Me what I should say and what I should speak.”

To Father and Son, how one approaches Their Word reveals one’s love for them, and conversely, Their love for him.  In John 14:15 Jesus makes this as clear as it can be made: “If you love Me, keep my commandments.”  In 14:21 He said: “He who has My commandments (Word/Law) and keeps them, he it is that loves Me, and he who loves Me is (therefore) loved by the Father and I (therefore) will love him and will manifest Myself to him.”  Then in 14:23 He said: “If a man love Me, He will keep (obey) My Words, and (then) My Father will love him and (then) We will come to him and make Our abode with him.”

In Matthew 4:4 Jesus made it clear that in order to live eternally one must “… live by every Word that proceeds from the mouth of God.”  I explained in an earlier posting that God speaks to the Son through Their Holy Spirit.  The Son then speaks to His prophets and apostles who speak and write what the Son has spoken to them.  What the prophets and apostles heard and spoke they recorded in what we call “books.”  The apostle John codified those Books into what has come to be known as the Holy Bible in which is known what needs to be known about the divine Godhead–the Father and the Son.  As I prove Scripturally in the series titled The Trinity, the Holy Spirit is not a God, but rather the power of the Godhead.  Read The Trinity.  Key word Trinity.  This is Biblical Truth that the whole of professing Christendom declares to be a lie.

While speaking to the disciples Jesus condemned the church’s rejection of works when He defined works as obeying His Word: “Do you believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in Me?  The WORDS that I speak to you I speak not of Myself, but the father that dwells in Me, He DOES the WORKS (Jn. 14:10).  Jesus was saying that the Father Who dwelt in Him (IN THE FORM OF THE HOLY SPIRIT) directed the man Jesus and empowered Him to obey His (God’s) Words.  He obeyed (worked) God’s Words by living them.  God’s Words were Christ’s “walk” (life-style).  The Holy Spirit is received internally by the true believer at the time of his conversion.  The Spirit in turn leads the believer who is identified in Romans 8:14 as a “son of God.”  Sons of God are Christ’s “brethren.”

When told that His brethren (mother and siblings) wanted Him to meet with them outside of a house where He was speaking, Jesus turned to His disciples and declared for all eternity: “Who  is My mother and who are My brethren?”  He then pointed to His disciples and said: “Behold My (spiritual) mother and My (spiritual) brethren.  For whosoever will do the will of My Father in heaven, he is My brother, sister and mother” (Mat. 12:46-50)–His brethren.  How did He and the disciples know the will of the Father?  By His Word.  Which is exactly how we all know His will.    Only Christ’s spiritual brethren will join Him in the Kingdom of God.

Another statement by the Lord has meaning that few fully understand due to the lack of “fine print” study.  This Truth is found in John 15:12-14 where He has commanded the disciples to love one another.  Verse 13 is one of professing Christendom’s favorites, right up there with John 14:12.  In that verse He said: “Greater love has no man than He lay down His life for His friends.”  Everyone who has “accepted Him as their Savior” believes him/herself to be Christ’s friend.  However, He puts that notion to rest in verse 14, which few people bother to read.  Here He separates true sons of God from false sons of God by saying to the disciples who have been with Him for three plus years, have preached the gospel, healed the sick and cast out demons in His name and by the power of the Holy Spirit: “You are my friends, IF YOU DO WHATSOEVER I COMMAND YOU.”  What did He command them to do?  Whatever the Father told Him to command them to do.  Recall that the Words He spoke were given to Him by the Father.  Being supposedly “saved, sanctified and born again” does make one a friend of Jesus.  Note that Jesus did not come to die for everyone, but only for those who DO EVERYTHING HE TELLS THEM TO DO.  What does He tell them to do?  GOD’S WILL.  How do we know God’s will.  BY STUDYING HIS WORD.  As I have said many times, EVERYTHING COMES BACK TO THE WORD, WHICH WE ARE COMMANDED TO WORK (OBEY).  In the on-going battle between God’s Word and church doctrine, let us believe and obey God.  L.J.