January 16 Daily Devotional

Scripture for Day 16—James 1:18

¹⁸ Of his own will he brought us forth by the word of truth…

Devotional:

"Unless one is born again," Jesus declared to Nicodemus, "he cannot see the Kingdom of God" (John 3:3). If the cause of this new birth is God's sovereign grace ("Of his own will he brought us forth…"), then the instrument that God uses to regenerate sinners is "the Word of truth."

The Holy Spirit is the agent who effects the new birth and "the sword of the Spirit … is the Word of God" (Eph. 6:17). God's Word is thus the instrument or tool, the "means of grace," by which the Holy Spirit regenerates sinners. It is increasingly important that we deepen our commitment and expectation that this is the means that our Lord himself—supernaturally and personally—especially uses to convert and edify sinners. This is important, for surely, we must ever deepen and intensify our efforts to reach the lost. But the spirit of our age is such that believers and churches increasingly are putting the Scriptures on the back burner in order to take up more entertaining and purportedly more effective methods to reach the lost. What is this if not a failure to believe that sinners are so lost that God himself must regenerate them "of his own will" and that he does so "by the word of truth"? What is this failure to believe if not the sin of practical unbelief?

Moreover, as you read the ensuing verses, notice that their accent is not on reading the Word, but rather on hearing it. That same theme is sounded throughout

Scripture—"You have been born again, not of perishable seed but of imperishable, through the living and abiding word of God ... And this is the word that was preached to you … Like newborn infants, long for the pure spiritual milk, that by it you may grow up into salvation" (1 Pet 1:23–2:2). God has ordained that his Word is to be publicly read and proclaimed. When it is, do you devote yourself to "conscionable hearing" (Confession of Faith 21:5)? Do you consciously seek to be touched and transformed by the sword of the Spirit (Eph. 6:17)? Do you prayerfully listen for the voice of the Good Shepherd through the preaching (Rom. 10:14)? God says that he has chosen to use a weak and foolish message (the gospel) by a weak and foolish method (preaching) through weak and foolish men (preachers) in order to make it crystal clear that if anyone at all is saved, it's a miracle from above (1 Cor. 2:1–5)! Do you pray that God himself will anoint and empower both the preaching and the hearing of his Word?

Pity the nations, O our God,
constrain the earth to come;
send thy victorious Word abroad,
and bring the strangers home. (Isaac Watts)^†

^†Click here for the full hymn and tune.

Click here for background on the author of Are You For Real?: Meditations in the Epistle of James for Secret or Family Worship.