​

CURRENT RADIO SERIES Lifeworks   CURRENT TV SERIES All Things New

For he knows our frame; he remembers that we are dust. --Psalm 103:14 The almighty God of this universe made us with His own hands. What an incredible thought! The Bible says that God stretched out the universe and flung the stars into the sky with just a word. But when it came to the creation of mankind, God seemingly knelt down and lovingly created us from the dust of the ground—just like a potter, creating something beautiful out of a lump of unformed clay. This means that God purposely and creatively constructed us! He made us wonderfully and beautifully, even though the main ingredient He used was dirt! I think it’s interesting that Genesis 1-2 speaks of man’s creation in such lofty terms as the image and likeness of God, yet also records that we are made of perhaps the most common element of earth, the dust of the ground. That’s why we should be careful to remain humble. We are not only made from the dust of the earth, but Scripture says that our bodies will also return to dust one day. Does that mean our bodies don’t matter to God? Not at all! Our bodies are the temple of God here on earth. Everything we do with our bodies is a matter of great importance to Him. In fact, the Bible teaches that we are the workmanship of Christ and therefore our bodies are not our own, to do anything we want to with them. My friend, you are the magnificent creation of God—spirit and body. So live your life and treat your body in a way that honors God and reminds you that you belong to Him! Your body is God’s personal creation. Be careful how you treat it.

The Impact of Truth

by Dr. Paul Chappell

“They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world. Sanctify them through thy truth: thy word is truth. As thou hast sent me into the world, even so have I also sent them into the world. And for their sakes I sanctify myself, that they also might be sanctified through the truth.”
John 17:16–19

We take having multiple copies of the Bible for granted, but the Word of God has not always been readily available in a form most people could read. In the 1300s there was no Bible in the English language. The scholar and theologian John Wycliffe set out to change that. Against the wishes of the established state church and much of the government, he labored to translate the Scriptures into the English language. Wycliffe was so despised that after his death from a stroke, his body was dug up, burned and the ashes scattered. But opposition could not stop the power of the Bible or undo the impact of his work.
Hundreds of years later, the poet William Wordsworth honored the life and impact of John Wycliffe with these lines:
“As thou these ashes, little brook, will bear
Into the Avon—Avon to the tide
Of Severn—Severn—to the narrow seas—
Into mid ocean they—this deed accurst
And emblem yields to friends and enemies,
How the bold teacher’s doctrine, sanctified
By Truth, shall spread, through all the world dispersed.”

The Lord has given us in His Word the most powerful tool—the tool of the truth. There is nothing else that has the impact of truth on the lives of men. We live in a culture that denies the very existence of truth, yet the truth remains. No matter how much falsehood fills the world, it cannot overcome the truth. The only way the truth can be defeated is when we choose not to believe it, proclaim it, and apply it to our daily lives.
 

Today’s Growth Principle: 

The power to change lives—our own and others—is found in the pages of the Word of God.