Time for a Reality Check?

Receive with meekness the implanted word, which is able to save your souls.—James 1:21b

Fall is a time when many of us undergo a reality check or evaluate our lives.  

The implanted word is God’s way of preserving and saving our souls in the end. You could not say anything more important about the word than this. Don’t misunderstand the power and importance of the word of God.

Here is the way Paul talks about this implanted, saving word.

• In 1 Thessalonians 2:13, he says, “When you received the word of God, which you heard from us, you accepted it not as the word of men but as what it really is, the word of God, which is at work in you believers.” The word of God did not come and go. It did not leave these believers. It is “at work in you.”
• It is, as Hebrews 4:12 says, “living and active.”
• Here is the way John writes about this implanted and active and saving word: “I write to you, young men, because you are strong, and the word of God abides in you, and you have overcome the evil one” (1 John 2:14). The word does not come and leave. When it creates life and faith, it “abides.”
• So the word of God is “implanted” in us, and “is at work” in us, and “abides” in us, and (James 1:21 says) “saves” us.

We cannot easily overstate how profoundly powerful and important the word of God is for our lives. If the word of God does not rank with your most cherished possessions, you need to do a reality check on your life. Nothing apart from God himself is more important and powerful than his word. 
—Receive With Meekness the Implanted Word, January 6, 2008

Time for a reality check.