Jesus says to the believers: “ If you continue in my word, you are
truly my disciples; and you will know the truth, and the truth will
make you free” (Jn. 8.31.32).
“Let me hear what God the Lord will speak, for he will speak peace to
his people, to his faithful, to those who turn to him in their hearts”
(Ps.85. 8). Quite often many people lead lives burdened with many
problems of life. But our loving God has an answer and solution for
all the crises we face. He speaks about it in His Word. Jesus pointed
out: “Is it not the reason that you are wrong, that you know
neither the Scriptures nor the power of God?” (Mk. 12.24.). Yes,
not only that we make mistakes, but also “we are destroyed for lack of
knowledge” (Hos. 4.6).
Our Creator God has ‘a plan of welfare about our future’ (Jer. 29.11),
but our enemy, the Satan wants to ‘destroy, steal and kill’ us (Jn.
10.10). God is Truth and His Word reveals the Truth about God, about
us, about our wellbeing, about our relationship with God, ourselves
and others…But the enemy, ‘who is the father of lies’ (Jn. 8.44)
distorts this Truth and injects lies and half truths into the mind of
human beings, thereby ruining their lives. As the Holy Spirit reveals:
“The unfolding of your words gives light; it imparts understanding to
the simple” (Ps. 119. 130). The word of God is powerful to remove all
darkness and to break all bondages from our lives. We should believe
firmly in God’s word so that it will transform our lives. When St. Paul
preached the word of God to the Thessalonians, “they received it not
as a human word but what it really is, God’s word” (1 Thess.2. 13)
So it is high time that we become more and more familiar with the
Truth of God’s Word, believe in it, and affirm the Truth against all
the tactics of the evil one. The Holy Spirit reminds us through St.
Paul: “Take the shield of faith, with which you will be able to quench
all the flaming arrows of the evil one” (Eph. 6.16). Mother Mary is
called ‘blessed’ because “she believed that there would be a
fulfillment of what was spoken to her by the Lord” (Lk. 1.45). She is
our model to ‘treasure God’s word and ponder them in our heart’ (Lk.
2.19). May we invoke her powerful intercession, especially through
the weapon of Rosary and also pray to the Holy Spirit, the principal
author of all Scriptures (CCC 304) to help us to keep God’s word as ‘a
lamp to our feet and a light to our path’ (Ps. 119.105) so that we may
not stumble in the darkness of sin, anxiety, fear, doubt, guilt,
depression, addictions, unbelief…and all that will ‘steal, destroy and
kill’ the blessings of the Lord in our lives.
Once Mother Theresa was at the air port .The Emigration staff was
enquiring with each traveler whether he/ she was carrying any
weapons. Mother Theresa’s turn came. She was asked very politely by
the staff: “Mother, do you have any weapons?” In all humility she
replied: “Yes, I do have”. The staff said a bit furiously: “Take it out”.
Mother took out her Bible and Rosary and said: “These are my
weapons”. We have no human enemy but only the powers of
darkness (Eph.6.12); and “our weapons of our warfare are not merely
human, but they have divine power to destroy strongholds” (2
Cor.10.4). Since we fail to use our weapons in the right way, we
become a prey to the attacks of the enemy.
This small booklet is a humble attempt to expose the Light of God’s
Word against the darkness of ignorance and disbelief about God’s
Truth, which is the cause of today’s problems. Use God’s Word as a
powerful weapon against the onslaughts of Satan. How blessed our
lives will be, if we read, believe and live by God’s Word rather than
human words and human standards. “The law of the Lord is perfect,
reviving the soul; the decrees of the Lord are sure, making the simple
wise; the precepts of the Lord are right, rejoicing the heart; the
commandment of the Lord is clear, enlightening the eyes” (Ps.
19.7,8). Jesus defeated Satan in the desert by just quoting the
Scriptures with conviction. Against the three temptations, Jesus said:
“It is written” quoting Deut 8.3, 6.16 and 6.13. Yes he used the Sword
of the Spirit, the Word of God (Eph 6.17) ’Rhema’, the spoken Word.
It is not our ‘intellectual faith or belief, but belief ‘from our heart’,
with conviction. God’s word says that we need to ‘believe with our
heart and confess with our mouth’ in order to be saved (Ro. 10.10).
Just by memorizing the Word or saying with our lips is not sufficient.
We need to believe with our heart, affirm the truth and confess and
proclaim with our mouth. Only then God’s Word will have its full
effect in us. Let this booklet help you to do that.
The more of God’s word is in my mind and heart, the less chance for
the enemy to deceive me with his lies. So let us read and meditate the
Word of God more and more when there is yet time for it, because
days will come when there will be a ‘famine for God’s word’. “People
shall run to and fro, seeking the word of the Lord, but they shall not
find it” (Amos.8.11, 12).
The Bible scholars have pointed out that there are over 35,500 versus
in the Bible, out of which over 8000 versus are promises of God to us.
Our loving Father has given us these promises to guide us, strengthen
us, and to encourage us in our journey to our Father’s House. We are
in a Covenant relationship with our living God and when we fulfill
the conditions attached to the promises, we will experience that all
these promises are ‘Yes’ in Jesus Christ for me. In other words, when
we live in Christ, all the promises of God will be fulfilled in us.
“Let us hold fast to the confession of our hope without wavering,
for he who has promised is faithful” (Heb. 10.23)
Mary Pereira