Monday 26th
James 1:22-25
NIV (v22) – ‘Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says.’
ESV (v22) – ‘But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves.’
I wonder how many of us have looked in a mirror this morning, and I wonder how many of us have already forgotten what we look like? James uses this as an example of how we can be toward the word of God, we read it or listen to it and then immediately forget what it is we have read or heard, we choose to just make a quick or casual glance into the word and then we move straightaway into doing something else and what was read was never absorbed or in the context of James’ letter not acted upon.
We live in a fast-paced world, we have fast foods to enable us to grab and go, to move from one activity to another and today, James would suggest that many Christians would take the word of God like a fast-food chain, which we would go to, grab a verse or two, read it or listen to it then move on, quickly forgetting what we have read or heard.
We need to remind ourselves that the word of God is living and active, it is our daily bread, and we need to spend time with it, for it is God’s word for our lives, for us to live out our relationship with him. It requires our obedience, it requires action, it requires as James says our doing, be not listeners only of the word of God but doers also.
Much of God’s word is instruction or guidance, it has been given to us to enable us to live how God wants us to live as his sons and daughters, a verse I have quoted a few times is from Psalm which asks a question ‘How can a young man keep his way pure?’ and the answer is given, ‘by guarding it according to your word.’ (Psalm 119:9) And this guarding according to your word does not happen with a fast-food approach but happens by sitting down and having a healthy meal approach, taking it in, absorbing it, allowing it to be digested and allowing its spiritual benefits to be outworked in our lives like the nutrients of a healthy meal. We will only ever be doers of the word if we have this kind of approach. It requires us to meditate upon what we have heard or read, it requires us to mull it over, and to ask questions such as what does this require from me? The listening (or reading) of the word requires a ready response, does it require me to do something practical or spiritual, does it require me to make some spiritual adjustments, does it require me to make some corrections, does it require me to respond in obedience to a certain matter, it may even be to stop us in our tracks and to completely realign our lives to what the word is saying. In Timothy we read, ‘All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.’ (Timothy 3:16) A grab and go attitude toward the word will lead to us losing out on all that the word of God is as being profitable for us as believers, it will lead to us being inadequately equipped to live life in this modern world in which we are found, it will lead to us simply as being like the illustration given by James, as just looking into a mirror and walking away, like noticing my hair looks scruffy and needs correcting and yet walking away, not doing anything about it.