Practical Wisdom from the Word of God

Hebrews 4:12 (NKJV) ¹² For the word of God is living and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the division of soul and spirit, and of joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.

Yesterday we looked at two areas that are divided by the scalpel of the Word of God. The Word of God is the first key to entering the rest of faith. One of the ways it enables us to enter the rest is to open our lives so that we can see the things that are hindering us. It then cuts out those things, freeing us to walk in the rest of faith in God.

This verse says that the scalpel pierces or cuts to the division of several things. The first is the division of soul and spirit. The word separates between those thoughts that are ours and those that come from the Lord. That which is strictly of the soul is what comes from our own mind. Thoughts, impressions and words that come from our spirit are the ones inspired by God. Knowing the difference will help us rest because we will be sure that the words we are resting in really do come from God.

Today I want to look at the next two things in this list. The Word of God will also divide the joints and marrow. The Greek word translated joints here carries the idea of articulation. The definition of articulation that applies is “the connection of the different parts of something by joints, or the way the parts fit together.” Joints enable us to move. I believe Paul is speaking of how we move through life. He is speaking of everyday living.

Sometimes we live on autopilot. We do what we do because it needs to be done. That is normal and unavoidable. I believe one of the biggest problems we have in life today is unrealistic expectations. That does not mean God cannot do big things in our lives. We just need to let him determine how to define big.

The expectations I am speaking of are the ones that tend to come from the media images with which we are bombarded on a daily basis. We see lives that are unrealistically exciting or dramatic. We see people that are unrealistically beautiful. We have unrealistic portrayals of love and romance. Then we look at our lives. Our jobs are not that exciting. Our spouse does not look like the people on TV. We do not jet off to exotic places and have exciting adventures. We do not deal with and overcome tragedy every week.

All of the good and bad things we experience are the joints. All of the mundane everyday things are the joints of life. Sometimes joints are overwhelming and sometimes they are distractions. Many times, they keep us going in the momentum of life. On the one hand, they keep us from quitting. On the other hand, they can keep us from hearing God’s voice and resting in faith.

If the joints represent our movement through life, what does the marrow represent? Marrow is where our blood is formed. The bible tells us that the life is in the blood. I would submit to you that the marrow represents our true life. While we need the joints to give us movement in life, the marrow is the source of our life. Without the marrow, the joints would have no function.

The Word of God has the capacity to separate what is real life from what is just our movement through life. When we know the life that God gives, the distractions of the world will not disturb our rest of faith. The unrealistic lives we see in the media cannot compare with the power and joy of a life lived in the light of God’s Word. When we are living “from the marrow” so to speak, the everyday can be as exciting and more fulfilling than the unreal we visit for entertainment. When we recognize what is “marrow life” and are able to distinguish it from “joint life”, we will be more able to enter the rest of faith.

Finally, the Word of God can differentiate between our thoughts and intents of the heart. To understand this we must know what the heart is. In this verse there are three distinct Greek words translated as soul, spirit and heart. They each mean something different.

The soul is our intellect, emotions and will. It is the part of us that interacts with the intellectual realm. The spirit is the inner man. It is the part that interacts with the spirit of God. While the soul is the seat of emotion and intellect, the spirit is the seat of the fruit of the Spirit, such as faith, hope and love. All that we hear from God comes from the spirit. If we are going to enter the rest, the Word of God must connect with the spirit so the fruit can manifest in the outward life.

What, then, is the heart? It is neither the soul nor the spirit as it is a different word. The Greek word used here is “kardia” from which we get the word cardiac. The heart is the center of a thing. The word “kardia” is defined as in Strong’s concordance as the heart, i.e. (figurative) the thoughts or feelings (mind); also (by analogy) the middle.

As I studied this verse, it occurred to me that if soul and spirit can be divided there must be a place where they are connected. Where is that place. I believe it is the heart. I think the heart is what science calls the subconscious. It is the deepest part of the soul. Every word spoken to us and every experience we have ever had is stored there. They may not be in our active memory but they make up the underpinning of all we believe about ourselves and of our view of life.

The Word of God has the ability to cut into our hearts. It separates what we think from how we think. How we think could be called “intents of the heart.” How we think determines how we react to life. The glasses our heart creates always color our surface thoughts we think. Many times, we cannot enter the rest of faith because the intents of our heart hinder us from receiving from the Word of God.

The Word helps us by putting our thoughts and the intents of our hearts in proper perspective. It can rewrite the “hard drive” of our lives so that we can respond to God and his Word according to the truth rather than our perspective of the truth. Look at Paul’s words in Romans.

Romans 12:1-2 (NKJV) ¹ I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service. ² And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.

When we are believe on Jesus, we are instantly made new creatures in Christ Jesus. Our spirits are “born again” and all things become instantly new. The problem is that we are left with the old “hard drive.” Our minds need to be renewed. The renewing of our minds will lead to the total transformation that extends from the spirit into the soul finally to expressed in the outward life we live in our body. The Word of God has been designed by God to accomplish this task.

The result of a renewed mind at the heart level is the ability to rest in faith. The voices that scream at us to worry and doubt will be silenced. The experiences from our past that get in the way of our acceptance of the truth of the Word of God will no longer hinder our responses to life. We will rest in the knowledge that God and his Word are able to keep us, bless us and bring victory into our lives.