Born Through the Word

“Having purified your souls by your obedience to the truth for a sincere brotherly love, love one another earnestly from a pure heart, since you have been born again, not of perishable seed but of imperishable, through the living and abiding word of God; for "All flesh is like grass and all its glory like the flower of grass. The grass withers, and the flower falls, but the word of the Lord remains forever." And this word is the good news that was preached to you.”

 (1Peter 1:22-25 ESV)

As believers in Jesus, we have been born again. This means that we’ve been given new life by God. While we once lived in the bondage of sin and death, we have been born from above. We’ve been born of God that we might be his people.

This is a wonderful truth.  But how does this happen? How are we born again? Peter tells us, in the above passage, that we are born again through the living and abiding word of God. 

We have a tendency to underestimate the power of the Word of God. We think of the Bible as a book that merely gives us information about God. We think of it as a history book, relaying to us how God has interacted with mankind throughout history. We think of it only as a book that gives us instruction on how to live.

While the Bible does all of these things, we often fail to realize that it’s a means of grace. We fail to realize that, through the Word, we receive the grace of God. As we hear God’s Word, or as we read it, and as we trust in him, we receive God’s grace.

This is a truth that Paul brings out to us in Romans 10. He tells us that we can’t call on the name of the Lord unless we first believe in him.  He goes on to say that we can’t believe in him unless we’ve first heard of him. In other words, as we hear the Word of God, we’re enabled to trust in Christ and to receive his salvation.

We also tend to think that the Bible is a book that is limited by time. We think that, if the authors of Scripture knew what we know now, they would not have said the things that they did. We think that the message of Scripture was true for the people of Biblical times, but not for us today. We tend to think of the Bible as a book that was written by mere men and, for this reason, we think it’s as limited as men.

However, even though the grass and flowers may perish, God’s Word abides forever. It will always remain.  Again, it is the living and abiding Word of God.

As we read Scripture, and as we hear it taught, may we look to it in this way. May we look to it as God’s timeless, eternal Word. And may we look to it as a means of his grace. May we realize that, each time we encounter God’s Word, he’s giving to us the opportunity to receive life.