APPLICATION by George Crumbly
Humphrey UMC 10/12/2008
Hebrews 4: 12
I thank God today for His Word!! I was thinking this week when the Lord called me to preach back in 1983, I was laid up in a hospital in Texarkana Texas recouping from a torn ACL in my right knee that I received while halter breaking some heifers for the FFA in Horatio Arkansas. I was reading in a Gideon N.T. and Psalm when the Lord impressed on me as a minister that we must “apply God’s word to our life”’ apply God’s word in our every day walk!!
What good does God’s word do for us IF we DO NOT apply iy in our lives? What good does medicine do us if we do not take it? What good does chemicals do the farmers crops if they do not apply it?
Hebrews 4: verses 12 “For the word of God is quick, and powerful and sharper than any two edged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart”.
The word is more than a book of stories…..it is LIVING and ACTIVE…My Christianity today goes beyond “religion”, my Christianity is a LIVING, BREATHING RELATIONSHIP with God through Jesus Christ!!
I do my very best every day to APPLY God’s word to my everyday life!!! I must APPLY it to my every day life.
Ezekiel 37:7 “So I prophesied as I was commanded, and as I prophesied, there was a noise, and behold a shaking, and the bones came together, bone to his bone”.
God’s word is a life giving force!! He gives us life!! The life we NEED to function & operate each & every day.
Jeremiah 5:14 “Wherefore thus saith the Lord god of hosts, because ye speak this, behold, I will make my words in thy mouth fire, and this people wood, and it shall them”.
God’s word is a DEVOURING FLAME!! There is a power in His word – it’s nothing I say or do but what God DOES!! We need power to function.
Jeremiah 23:29 “Is not thy word like s a fire? Saith the Lord and like a hammer that breaketh the rock in pieces?”
God’s word is a CRUSHING hammer!!
(There is a young boy that walks around on Saturday morning at the flea market in Beebe Arkansas, he walks around holding his bible up in the air never speaking a word…he doesn’t have too)
(I had a preacher friend in the Arkansas Delta that felt led one time when a bar in town was having a costume contest one Halloween several years ago to go to the bar and stand out beside dressed as a biblical character. He stood outside on the curb holding his bible open never saying a word. People would pull up to the curb and then drive off when they saw him, they would walk up to the bar and cuss my friend. The bar owner asked my friend to leave as he was “ruining” his business, my friend told the bar owner he was “ruining” his business)
You see, all my friend had to do was stand there and when folks saw the word of God they were crushed!! The influence of God’s word today is MIGHTY!! Can you believe that something so special, so important, we take for granted?
People in America have so many in their homes…God’s word is a PROBING instrument!! The other day I was thinking that I have never been much on sermon series but I was reading an email I received that was talking about “Emergency Numbers”, another words scriptures giving answers to problems we face every day in our lives.
God’s word is where we find the answers we need…
God’s word is where we find those that have “been there” and “done that”.
We all face trials & tribulations in our lives….
I Peter 1:7 “That the trial of your faith, being much more precious than of Gold that perisheth, though it be tried with fire, might be found unto praise and honor and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ”.
I Peter 4:12 Beloved, think it not strange concerning the fiery trial which is totry you, as though some strange thing happened unto you.”
Folks today are LOOKING & SEEKING answers to not only life’s issues, but with hurts & heartaches we go thru. When you and I are facing these kinds of issues we must APPLY God’s word in our lives.
We need to set an example for our children & grandchildren as they are watching to see how we make it thru these situations!!
John 5:39 “Search the scriptures; for in them ye think ye have eternal life; and they are they which testify of them”.
(My oldest son told me my 7 year old grandson came in the house the other day carrying his bible open to the first page. My son ask him what he was doing, he responded saying he was trying to find out what he was suppose to do and what he was not suppose to do. My son asks him how it was going and he responded he didn’t know because he was only on the first page!)
Once again God’s word is where we find out the answers to life’s questions as well as the solutions to life’s problems. We must an example ourselves!!
