Here's another thing. Have a look at this in Hebrews 4. How you receive the word determines whether it can do any work in your life. There are so many aspects of this, but we'll just pick up this one here in Hebrews 4:1.
Since there remains a promise of them entering His rest, let us fear lest any seem to come short of it. Now here it is: For indeed the gospel was preached to us as well as them; but the word they heard did not have any value to them whatsoever, and produced not a bit of fruit.
Now that's an extraordinary thing to say. Now He's talking about the Hebrew people coming out of Egypt, redeemed by the blood, walking through the wilderness with the promise of inheritance; and this is what the Bible says: They heard the gospel. What did they hear? What gospel did they hear? They heard the gospel of the kingdom, that there is a realm of inheritance for you to possess, that advances God's purpose on the earth. They heard the same gospel as we have heard.
The Bible says: though it did them no good, because of one factor; it was not mixed with faith in those who heard it. Notice what it said: They got the word, but it didn't do them any good. They got the message, but it didn't do them any good. Now why did it not do them any good? Because something was missing in their response; and it says: they were not joined to it by faith. That word joined is to be mixed. It's to be connected. They were not joined to it by faith.
So Hebrews 4 - so they missed out on what they could have had, because they weren't joined to it by faith. God's word is powerful. Hebrews 4:12, it says: it's like a sharp sword. It says: it's alive or quick. It's full of the life of God, breathed in by the spirit of God.
This Bible that you have in your hands, or don't have in your hands, men died to get it to you. Men shed their blood to get it to you. They were tortured and burnt and suffered to get this word to you in a written form; and the Bible says in Hebrews 4:12: the word of God is quick. It's alive with the life of God. It is sharp. It's sharp like a two-edged sword. In other words, it's so sharp, it can just penetrate through with one slice, without hacking.
I saw in a movie, and they were trying to get this guy's head off with a sword - a lot of hacks to get that head off. He said: shwoosh! like that. That's what the word does - goes straight to it. Straight to it like that, no hacking with the word of God. Nice and sharp! Bible's full of pictures like that. Some people don't want to think about them, because they're too nice - but I'd like to think that when I speak the word of God, it'll hike the head off again! That'd be great wouldn't it?
Sharper than any two-edged sword, quick and powerful. The word powerful means - here it is again - energayo: to be energetic, or life-giving, or energising.
We tend to love experiences that are created in group situations, but there's something that can only be done in our life with God, and that's get His word into our heart.
Get His word into our heart - so it's says: this word did not profit them. It was no use. It didn't do any good - not because it couldn't do it, but because how they responded - they did not receive it.
Notice what the Thessalonians said. Here we come to the second thing in 1 Thessalonians 2 verse 13: you did not receive it as the word of man, but as the word of God, which works powerfully in you who believe.
So I must first of all value God's word. Your Bible, this Bible you carry, you may not understand all of it. There's a lot of it I don't understand I can tell you now - but there's some I really do, and it's the bit you really do, you've got to be working on in your life.