Today’s reading is James 1.
We have been recreated by God’s word of truth. It is like Adam and Eve all over when we are born again by God’s Word. However, unlike Eve and Adam, we must be quick to hear God’s Word. We must be slow to speak against it and slow to get angry because of it. Not only must we be quick to hear, we must follow hearing with submission. We must not be only hearers of the Word, but doers as well.
Jesus explained those who hear the Word but don’t do it, are foolish builders. Their houses built on sand will be washed away in the storms of judgment. However, those who hear the Word and do it, are wise builders. Their houses built on the rock will stand firm in the storms of judgment. James provides another picture.
The person who hears but doesn’t do, is like a person looking in a mirror who goes away and immediately forgets what he was like. This word picture can mean one of two things. He might be calling to mind a picture like that of someone doing a self-portrait. To get the details right we all have to keep looking back in the mirror. As soon as we leave the mirror, we lose the details. I think, however, James is making a different point. He is not saying everyone who looks in a mirror forgets “what he was like.” Rather, he is saying the person who hears the Word but does not do it is like a person who is so foolish, he could look intently in a mirror and then be unable to recognize himself the next time he looks in the mirror. When we hear the Word, we hear the kind of people we are supposed to be. When we refuse to do what it says, we have forgotten the kind of people we are to be like. That is just as stupid as forgetting what we look like right after turning away from the mirror.
We are not blessed by hearing the Word. We are blessed by persevering in the Word and doing. In one sentence, James encapsulates his Brother’s Sermon on the Mount. That sermon began with statements of blessing, but ended with the call to hear and do. You can’t have the beginning of that sermon if you ignore the end of it.
It is super-great we are reading God’s Word every day. It is super-great we are participating in this study of it. What will you do with what you have read today? That is the real question.
Tomorrow’s reading is James 1.
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Discuss the Following Questions with Your Family
- What are your initial reactions to the chapter and the written devo above?
- Why is hearing the Word so much easier than doing it?
- What keeps us from doing the Word of God?
- What advice would you give others to follow our hearing with doing?
- What do you think we should pray for and about in light of this chapter and today’s post?
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