... and your point is?

I was talking to my older son the other day while we were both on the road driving to our perspective homes.  His in California and ours here in North Carolina!  Ah… for the wonders of modern technology.  During the conversation we got to talking about cars and I mentioned how much I was enjoying our new Equinox.  He asked “why” and I proceeded to share all the little nuances of the vehicle.

For some reason, I recalled that conversation this morning as I was preparing my breakfast.  And I got to thinking about how the new car is much more than it seemed to be.  Let me explain it this way… When we parked our 2009 Mustang GT convertible in our driveway, most people who saw it knew exactly what to expect from that car.  When I started the engine and the twin exhausts of the tuned V8 engine rumbled to life, most people could imagine the power it had and the pleasure that it provided to us as we drove down the block.

A Mustang is really a simple car.  As my former brother-in-law once said about the Camaro we owned a few years back, “A Camaro (or a Mustang, being the same class of car) is simply a small car with a large, powerful engine stuffed under the hood.”  There really is not a lot to the car.  It is sharp looking, very powerful and fast, and a blast to drive.  In other words, what you see is what you get.  Now the Equinox is a different type of vehicle…

While there is no way that you can compare it to the performance abilities and pizzazz of the pony car, it does have its own impressive list of accoutrements.  And that is what I meant when I was talking with my son about the car.  It rides really smooth, affords us lots of room in order to carry Piper’s chair with plenty of space left over for lots of additional items… Like my plan to go to the Home Depot this week to get some bags of soil, wire fencing and posts.  The Mustang couldn’t handle that trip!  

The Equinox also performs well enough for our purposes.  It is not a barn-burner like the GT was, but the four cylinder engine coupled with a six speed transmission makes for smooth transitions between gears.  I’ve even found some light weight camping trailers that we could pull behind it!  And when you add the state of the art infotainment system complete with Chevy My Link, satellite radio and the OnStar communication link, Piper and I are quite the happy campers!  So, suffice to say, the Equinox is not just a nice looking but boring mid-sized SUV.  For us… there is more to the Equinox than meets the eye!

Now while you really can’t compare the two, my discussion of our two cars does have some similarity to a point that Jesus was making when he was having a private conversation with His disciples in John chapter six.  After having shared some things about the Bread of Life with them, some of the disciples started complaining to each other saying: “This is tough teaching, too tough to swallow.” (John 6:60 The Message)  Upon hearing them, Jesus knew that He needed to make a breakthrough point to them and declared, “the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life.” (John 6:63 KJV)

The interesting part of this statement though, is the way I believe that He spoke the words to them.  First of all, we need to understand exactly what He was talking about.  The word ‘spirit’ is directly related to “the third person of the triune God, the Holy Spirit.” (Thayer’s)  It most likely should have been capitalized in the KJV translation.   The word ‘life’ is “Zoe” in the Greek and refers to “the absolute fullness of life, a life that is real and genuine, a life active and vigorous, devoted to God, blessed, in the portion even in this world of those who put their trust in Christ…” (Thayer’s)

With that in mind, I also took a look at the tiny descriptive word ‘ARE’ that is placed before both Spirit and life in Jesus’ comment.  It is defined as a “singular present indicative” which sets “an emphatic mood” for the sentence. (Thayer’s)  Dictionary.com describes the word “emphatic” as “using emphasis in speech or actions; forceful or insistent; very impressive or significant; strongly marked.”

So, I believe Jesus was aiming to make a dramatic point about the Words that He spoke by accentuating the use of the word ‘ARE’ when talking about the Holy Spirit and Zoe life.  He declared: “The words that I speak unto you ARE spirit, and they ARE life.”  His point being that like with my car examples, there is a lot more than meets the eye when you talk about and use the Word of God in our daily lives.  God’s Word doesn’t just contain spirit and life…

THEY ARE FILLED WITH THE HOLY SPIRIT’S POWER AND THEY ARE FILLED WITH THE FULNESS OF THE GOD KIND OF LIFE!

I read somewhere recently that when we speak out the Word of God, that we are actually giving Jesus voice into our lives!  I wonder how many of us REALLY consider the Word of God to be the voice of Jesus and filled with the Holy Ghost and the fullness of the God kind of life?  If you REALLY understood that… would you do anything different when it came to God’s Word?

Think on that revelation over the next day or two and we’ll talk a little bit more about it on Friday and we'll consider the possibilities that this holds for us as members of the body of Christ.  Have a great rest of the week, and as you do, keep asking yourself… “What…  if any…  difference am I expecting in my life concerning the Word of God?”