What Are We Doing?
- Bible Study – done for today
- Prayer – all day
- Sunday Worship – haven’t missed a week in a long time
- Fellowship – as regularly as I can fit it in my schedule
- Church Committee Attendance – when it’s convenient
I am frequently reminded that preparing a lesson teaches the teacher more than she can possibly teach anyone else. Sometimes this also means I get more convicted of my sin.
Last Saturday I was teaching a lovely group of ladies from a local church about one of God’s patterns for our lives. It was the pattern found in Colossians 3. Paul gives us a list of behaviors and attributes that, as Christians, we need to “take off.” He then gives a second list of attributes that we need to “put on.” (See previous posts “Get Rid of It” and “Put It On.”). The general theme was that we are to use the patterns God gives us to build our houses on the Rock.
As I was teaching the most prominent verse in my mind was the last one I taught. Matthew 7:24 “Everyone then who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock.”
When I had written the talk this seemed like a good way to end things. We all want to build our lives on the Rock Himself, Jesus Christ. We have learned many times how important this is when the storms of life hit. Jesus says, “Sufficient for the day is its own trouble.” Matthew 6:34. Clearly we will have trouble in this life.
But what I heard from this closing verse was as if it were spoken only to me in that room full of women. “Everyone then who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock.”
Does what? What the words of the Lord tell me to. I am accomplishing this list of spiritual disciplines that involve listening to the Word of God but am I doing what it says? Well, some of the time I am.
I am afraid we’ve come to a point in our Christianity where we see this list at the top of the post and if we’re doing well at those things we figure we’re good with God. Jesus said we have to do them. James agrees, James 1:22, “But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves.”
We deceive ourselves when we do a lot of hearing the Word but don’t do what it says. I know a whole lot about what the Bible says about pride. The word is never used in a positive way in the scripture. I know that God hates the proud person – yet I am still proud in many ways. It shows up and I have to repent –again! It is the sin God first showed me when I got saved 16 or 17 years ago and I am still fighting it.
I know that in this life I cannot perfectly emulate Jesus Christ – but He is the goal. He sets the standards. He did only what God called Him to and spoke only the words God gave Him! He is the Word of God. (John 1:1). We are to do as He did.
This truth applies to our works as well as the disciplines of prayer and Bible study. We read His word and know that we are to supply for the orphan and the widow in need. We are not to see a person in poverty and say, “Go, be warm and well fed.” We are to bear one another’s burdens and love one another.
Are we doing these things or are we accumulating a lot of knowledge that never gets lived out for others to see?
Do not be deceived, my beloved brothers. James 1:16
Memory verse: “But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves.” James 1:22