As Good As His Word

Today I’m interrupting the series on “Gospel 101” so I can participate in this week’s

Monday Manna

Joanne Sher at An Open Book is hosting this week, and she provided the following verses for us to use as our topic.

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. (Gen 1:1)

 

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. (John 1:1)

Remember that fine old expression, “He’s as good as his word?”  It means faithfulness to one’s commitments.  “If he says he’ll do it, he’ll do it!”  He’s as good as his word.

We couch the same idea in a warning, too.  As I often remind my children, “You’re only as good as your word.”  We cannot trust or respect those who don’t say what they mean or mean what they say.

How good is God’s Word?

“And God said, “Let there be…” 

Three little words, and the cosmos obeyed.  Stars ignited.  Planets danced around them.  Gravity reined everything into proper orbits.  Light shone.  Water coalesced.  Life roamed, and slithered, and flew, and swam. 

Because of the Word.  His Word.

What is a perfect word?  You and I can’t utter them.  Our humanly-spoken words carry with them only the representations of ideas.  If someone understands our language, then our words carry meaning.  To a foreigner, our words are so much noise.

God’s perfect Word is no mere representation.  It is His declaration of His Will, and so it carries the power to make His Will happen.  Let there be light…and there was light.  (Gen 1:3)

His Word is His Truth conveyed (not merely represented) to us.  Your Word is truth (John 17:17).

It is His expression of His very Self.

And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth. (John 1:14)

Jesus is that Word.  The very same Word which spoke creation (John 1:3), now wrapped in flesh.  God’s Life in the form of human life, His glory shining brightly despite its imprisonment in a jar of clay (John 1:4).

Jesus said to him, "He who has seen Me has seen the Father” (John 14:9)

Never think that our Heavenly Father is a hateful, vengeful being, and that Jesus came to save us from Him.  I’m sad to say that I saw God that way in my younger years.  God forbid that we should think such blasphemy!  Jesus came to save us from the sin which separates us from the Father!  He came to bring us to God (1 Pet. 3:18), who is our exceeding joy (Ps. 43:4)!

How good is our God?  He is as good as His Word.

As good as a promise made back in the garden.

Look at the part of the Genesis account where the creation of man is explained in greater detail (Gen. 2:7).  Do you notice something different about the creation of man compared to all of the rest of creation?

God did not use the Word alone for that one.  He did say, “Let Us make man…” (Gen. 1:26), but He gave His Word hands for that task…hands which formed the man from the dust of the ground.  And then He breathed life into him.

Why?

All of the rest of God’s creatures live their stories and die when their curtains close.  For them, a single act of creation was enough.  Flesh and life were given all at once.  But for man…

For man, there had to be something more.  The props were all put in place, and the supporting actors knew their parts, but what was this drama now disclosing, as God broke form and made man in a different way?

That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. (John 3:6)

Do you see the Gospel being sculpted from the dust?  Animals and stars are what they appear to be.  They have bodies, and the living creatures have a form of life.  But for humans there must be something else.  The physical form is not all there is.  When it dies, we do not.  There is more.  Much more.

Adam awaited the breath of God.  Until that was given, there was no life.

Do you know that the Hebrew word for “breath,” נשׁמה(neshâmâh), also means “Spirit?”

Adam and Eve forfeited their divinely-given life when they chose the way of death.  And when that happened, God gave them a promise.  A coming One who would crush Satan under His feet (Gen. 3:15).

The Word who spoke creation would create us anew by His life and His Spirit.

Have you been created only once, or are you a new creation now (2 Co. 5:17)?

God breathed only one Word for our eternal life, and His name is Jesus.

And God is as good as His Word.

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Be sure to drop by An Open Book for links to more devotionals on this subject.