Transformation Through The Spoken Word

A transformation is a complete or major change in someone or something. Ephesians 2:11-22 is a very good example of such a change. It describes the state of a person before the person comes to know the Lord Jesus Christ and the radical change or transformation that takes place after the person comes to know Jesus as His personal Lord and Saviour. This can be explained in this way: a person before he comes to know Christ is separated from God, excluded from Citizenship in Israel; citizenship from Heaven. The person is a foreigner to the covenant of the promise, is without hope and without God in the world. What an awful life! But when a person opens his heart to allow Jesus come and rule and reign in his life, he is now near to Christ. There’s no distance whatsoever between him and God. The wall or barrier separating him from Christ has been destroyed. He is no longer a foreigner and stranger but a bona fide citizen of heaven, a member of God’s household. Consequently, the person is now a joint heir with Christ and a full beneficiary of all the promises of God (Romans 8:17). He now has a living hope (1 Peter 1:3, Colossians 1:27), God lives in him and works through him (John 14:23, John 14:16-17, Philippians 2:16). In fact, now he is God’s home, God’s dwelling place. What an awesome transformation!

Indeed this is the ultimate transformation everyone should desire and experience. To move from being far away from God to being so close to God with nothing at all separating you from God, to move from a life of groping and living in darkness to a life of basking in God’s marvelous light (Colossians 1:13, 1 Peter 2:9).

What has the power to bring about this kind of transformation? What can deliver a person from spiritual blindness (2 Corinthians 4:4) and open the person’s eyes to the truth of God’s word and God’s love? It is the Word of God. 1 Corinthians 1:18 tells us that the message of the cross is the power of God. The Word of God is the power of God to transform. It has the power to bring about a complete change or turn around in a person’s life or situation. Romans 1:16 says “it is the power of God that brings salvation to everyone who believes”.

There is great power in the Word of God. For you to experience the power in the Word of God, you must not only read it and believe it, you have to speak the Word. Romans 10:19 tells us that a person is not just saved by believing in his heart that Jesus is Lord, he has to open his mouth and confess that Jesus is Lord. He has to speak and declare the Word.

When the devil threw fiery darts of temptation at Jesus, Jesus was able to quench those fiery darts with faith in God’s Word. He used a Word of God to counteract every temptation the devil threw in His face. Jesus spoke the Word with power and authority and the devil left Him. Speak, confess and declare God’s Word and every devil and demon out to bring you down will flee.

But can you possibly speak the Word and get results if you don’t even know the Word? You have to daily hide the Word in your heart to keep temptation away (Psalm 119:11). You have to have the Word dwelling richly in you to have an answer to give to the devil or any situation that wants to overwhelm you (Colossians 3:16). We are not just to fill our stomachs with physical food, we need to fill ourselves with spiritual food; the Word of God (Matthew 4:4). Let it be daily food you take in so as you are faced with decisions to make, you are guided by the light of the Word (Psalm 119:105). So as you come across hopeless, impossible situations, you can release a Word of life that can turn impossibilities to realties (Luke 18:27).

Let us look at an instance were by merely speaking the Word, a transformation took place.

DRY BONES BROUGHT BACK TO LIFE THROUGH THE POWER OF THE SPOKEN WORD (EZEKIEL 37:1-14)

Hebrews 4:12 tells us that “the word of God is alive and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow, it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart”. This was exactly what happened in the valley of dry bones. The Word of God penetrated into those dry bones and they came back to life. We see from that encounter in the valley of the dry bones that:

- It is not only human beings that can hear and respond to the Word of God. Ezekiel told the dry bones to hear the Word of the Lord. He must have looked very stupid talking to those dry bones. But the bones heard. They actually heard him as he was talking. The dry bones heard because he wasn’t just speaking mere, ordinary, inconsequential, lifeless words. What he spoke to those bones had spirit and life (John 6:63). He spoke the Word. The Word didn’t pass over them. Indeed the bones were dry, there was no life in them, but that didn’t prevent them from hearing the Word of God. Their dry, hopeless state was not a barrier to the Word reaching them and affecting them. If those dry bones could hear the Word of God, everything that is dry in your life whether it’s your spiritual life, bank account, business, or marriage will hear the Word of God, respond and come back to life.