receive the word implanted

Tomorrow I am heading out on a new adventure... Okay, it's not terribly adventuresome, but it is a change of scenery. I'm heading to Manitoba to start working at Valley View Bible Camp for the whole summer. I am quite excited to see some friends and to get off my behind, but that excitement is dulled simply because I have so much to do today. I am sick of packing!

I listened to a very interesting sermon yesterday. It was about the judgement seat of Christ, and one of the last points the preacher made was that his message, if ignored, was enough to condemn you to hell. It was a very bold statement, but not out of place. It fit the rest of his sermon and the style in which he preached. The point is that we are responsible for how we react to the Word of God. Isaiah 55:10-11 states,

For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven, and do not return there without watering the earth and making it bear and sprout, and furnishing seed to the sower and bread to the eater, so will My word be which goes forth from My mouth; it will not return to Me empty, without accomplishing what I desire, and without succeeding in the matter for which I sent it.

God's word is so extremely important--Christians above all others are responsible for how they respond to it.

One of my all time favourite verses speaks on this very matter. Deuteronomy 32:46-47: "Take to your heart all the words with which I am warning you today, which you shall command your sons to observe carefully, even all the words of this law. For it is not an idle word for you; indeed it is your life." These aren't just words that have no meaning--they are life! The Word of God is the very sustenance of the Christian. Without engaging in it and allowing God to convict you through it, Christians can never expect to grow.

Now comes the time where we must choose between rejecting the Word or receiving it.

See, I have set before you today life and prosperity, and death and adversity, in that I command you today to the love the Lord your God, to walk in His ways and to keep His commandments and His statutes and His judgements, that you may live and multiply, and that the Lord your God may bless you in the land where you are entering to possess it... I call heaven and earth to witness against you today, that I have set before you life and death, the blessing and the curse. So choose life in order that you may live, you and your descendants, by loving the Lord your God, by obeying His voice, and by holding fast to Him; for this is your life and the length of your days...

This quote is from Deuteronomy 30:15-16, 19-20. It makes it undeniably clear that we are to "in humility receive the word implanted, which is able to save [our] souls" (James 1:21).

Do not take His Word lightly.