“Live Out the Word”
(Part 2)
“Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says.”
James 1:22

Listening to the Word of God and not putting it to practice produces very little fruit in our life. It’s like those “diet pills” they advertise on television… “Take one of these and in 37 seconds you’ll be razor thin with rock hard abs.” Of course, I am exaggerating a little bit, but the pictures they show would lead you to believe that the people they are presenting simply took that pill and in a few weeks that’s what happened to them. Inevitable every one of those ads will contain a little disclaimer at the end that reads- “Results not typical. Best results when used in combination with diet and exercise.”

Likewise, you can’t come to church on Sunday and Wednesday night and take your weekly dose of Bible and expect to wake up the next day with a transformed life. It must be put to practice.

“Anyone who listens to the word but does not do what it says is like a man, who looks at his face in a mirror, and after looking at himself, goes away and immediately forgets what he looks like. James 1:23-24

Too many of us have forgotten the truth we have heard and learned from Scripture over the years, not because it isn’t being taught, but because we have stopped living it! We have to be taught the same truths over and over again, as if we have forgotten, when more accurately we are simply not responding to what we are hearing and reading. Here are two examples:
James 5:13-15 declares:

“Is any one of you in trouble? He should pray. Is anyone happy? Let him sing songs of praise. Is any one of you sick? He should call the elders of the church to pray over him and anoint him with oil in the name of the Lord. And the prayer offered in faith will make the sick person well; the Lord will raise him up. If he has sinned, he will be forgiven.”

How many of you when you are sick call on the elders of your church to pray for you and anoint you with oil in the name of the Lord? That truth will never become a reality in your life until you begin to respond to it!

Here’s another example found in Malachi 3:10-11:

“Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house. Test me in this,” says the LORD Almighty, “and see if I will not throw open the floodgates of heaven and pour out so much blessing that there will not be room enough to store it. I will prevent pests from devouring your crops, and the vines in your fields will not drop their fruit before it is ripe,” says the LORD Almighty.”

Again we receive from the Lord an instruction and a promise. However, many people never experience the blessing, because they do not respond to His Word. It is not the man who hears the word that is blessed, but it is the one who looks into the law that gives freedom, continues to do so, not forgetting the truth he has learned, but rather puts it to practice that will be blessed:

“But the man who looks intently into the perfect law that gives freedom and continues to do this, not forgetting what he has heard, but doing it- he will be blessed in what he does.”
James 1:25


Pastor Scott Burr
http://faithandworshipseries.blogspot.com/