Not Just Hearers! BUT DOERS!

I taught bible studies for the men at a local detention center some years back, and the majority of the times that I taught I included the statement: "The scriptures are just words contained in the bible, if you don't believe them and you don't put into practice what you read, the scriptures will be just words on a page, you must apply them to your life in order for you to receive the blessings the scriptures contain!

James 1:21-25

"Therefore lay aside all filthiness and overflow of wickedness, and receive with meekness the implanted word, which is able to save your souls.

But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves. For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man observing his natural face in a mirror; for he observes himself, goes away, and immediately forgets what kind of man he was. But he who looks into the perfect law of liberty and continues in it, and is not a forgetful hearer but a doer of the work, this one will be blessed in what he does."

Human beings are creatures of habit, so if it's your habit to go inside a building on Wednesday and Sunday, sing a few songs, clap your hands, stomp your feet and jump around, then sit down and listen to a man or in many cases a woman, preach to you, then you go home afterwards and do your chores, run some errands, watch a sitcom or a sports game, you are fulfilling the words of the above scriptures!

This is exactly why judgments come! Because all people, especially religious people, will keep doing the same things over and over and over, until they die, unless there is some kind of shaking, something that will force them to make a decision that will change their lifestyle, or the way they think!

Covid did that for about a year and a half, and you know what happened after? People just got worse and they went right back to doing what they were used to before Covid! 

So God Himself has to intervene in order for change to occur, and when He does, will anyone like the change that's going to come? I know I will! But millions won't!!

Matthew 7:24-27

"Therefore whoever hears these sayings of Mine, and does them, I will liken him to a wise man who built his house on the rock: and the rain descended, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house; and it did not fall, for it was founded on the rock.

“But everyone who hears these sayings of Mine, and does not do them, will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand: and the rain descended, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house; and it fell. And great was its fall.”

Jesus said those who hear these sayings of mine and put them into practice are wise! So we have a lot of foolish people who call themselves Christians in this world don't we!

Being a disciple of Jesus is an everyday lifestyle of devotion, prayer, bible study, relationship, learning, growing, thinking different, talking different, applying the teachings of Jesus to your life, meditation on the scriptures, obedience to God's commands, written and spoken!

Have you deceived yourself? Do you believe you're putting  the teachings of Jesus into practice, but your life is completely opposite? 

Do you just acknowledge the scripture, and say, 'yeah I'm trying, I'm not perfect, nobody is, we're all a work in progress'! If this is you, then you have deceived your own self!

Will you be just a hearer or a doer?

The choice is Yours!

In Christ,

Tyrone