Biblical Success - Running With Rhema PowerSample

I love Psalm 119! It is so deep and filled with meaty meaning! For example these two simple verses from Psalm 119, “Thy Word have I hid in my heart that I might not sin against Thee.” (v.13) And, ”Thy Word is a lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path.” (v.108) bring us the essential truth in clear and simple terms. Hiding God’s Word in our heart takes consistent and disciplined effort, but it is the most effective and available means that we have to know our Father intimately. It is a great help, perhaps even lighting the entrance into the “narrow way” that leads to living our best life from God’s perspective. As we invest the time needed to learn more and more about our Lord and His ways, we are given gentle challenges to apply His word and ways in the circle of influence right where He has planted us. When we respond in faith, God takes over and does unbelievably cool things. What follows is a real life testimony.

Several years ago at a class reunion I was walking past the bar area when a large man grabbed my shoulder roughly, turned me around and said “Buck Jacobs I have been waiting for 24 years to get even with you for putting me on the water bubbler in our freshman year!” He stood up and I glanced at his name tag. As he was standing and I read his name I remembered him and an incident that occurred during our freshman year in High School. The man, we’ll call him Jeff, was sort of a nerd, and as a freshman he was too small to be a cool jock and was often picked on, and one day had his jeans soaked on the water fountain by some of the football players. I might have been one of the guys who did it but I wasn’t, I wasn’t there.

As all this was happening, a little voice whispered in my ear “A gentle answer turns away wrath” (Prov15:1) I heard it in my spirit. I knew I had to choose what to do.It was a gentle challenge but I heard it. In the next nanosecond I said “Jeff I know about that incident but I wasn’t there. I wasn’t one of them. But Jeff I admit, when I heard about it I did laugh, and that was wrong. I’m sorry. Will you forgive me?” Where did those words come from? Both those in my mind speaking the scripture, and those that came out of my mouth? How could I in that split second or two remember an event from 25 years ago? It was what I call a rhema moment.

Jeff’s face changed before my eyes. The flush of anger leaked out and he actually teared up and put his arm around my shoulder. “You weren’t there and you’re sorry you laughed?” He said. “Yes Jeff, I wasn’t there. I’ve become a Christian now and there are a lot of things I did before that I’m sorry for.”

“You weren’t there? You’re sorry that you laughed? You have changed. Sure I forgive you Buck. let me buy you a beer”

I didn’t accept the beer but we shared some of our current life stories and the reunion went on. I never saw Jeff again. Heres’s the point. I had been reading the Word daily, not having the quiet time and journalling as I now advocate, I had tried and failed to be consistent until 1992 when God gave me the two steps outlined in my current book “The Most Important Hour.But did read the Word for at least 5 minutes every day, was attending men’s Bible Studies, teaching Sunday school, working in a Christ-centered business and was definitely growing in my faith, perhaps not as effectively as I now know to be possible but growing.

I can see that moment with Jeff in my mind to this day over 25 years ago. Jeff’s face, the bar environment, all of it. It is definitely an example of rhema to me. God’s Word becoming real and personal to me. I heard the whisper. I applied the Logos. There have been many other times in the years since that reunion that the “A gentle answer turns away wrath” has stopped me from giving a sharp retort or the temptation to take a bad situation and make it worse. That’s what rhemas do.

Tomorrow we will discuss what it is that acti