GEMS FROM JAMES (3)
LETTING THE WORD WORK
He chose to give birth to us by giving us His true Word. And we, out of all creation, became his prized possession.
Listening and Doing
Understand this, my dear brothers and sisters: You must all be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to get angry. Human anger does not produce the righteousness God desires. So get rid of all the filth and evil in your lives, and humbly accept the Word God has planted in your hearts, for it has the power to save your souls.
But don’t just listen to God’s word. You must do what it says. Otherwise, you are only fooling yourselves. For if you listen to the word and don’t obey, it is like glancing at your face in a mirror. You see yourself, walk away, and forget what you look like. But if you look carefully into the perfect law that sets you free, and if you do what it says and don’t forget what you heard, then God will bless you for doing it. James 1:18-25 NKJV The MESSAGE says :He brought us to life using the true Word, showing us off as the crown of all his creatures.
Act on What You Hear
Post this at all the intersections, dear friends: Lead with your ears, follow up with your tongue, and let anger straggle along in the rear. God’s righteousness doesn’t grow from human anger. So throw all spoiled virtue and cancerous evil in the garbage. In simple humility, let our gardener, God, landscape you with the Word, making a salvation-garden of your life.
Don’t fool yourself into thinking that you are a listener when you are anything but, letting the Word go in one ear and out the other. Act on what you hear! Those who hear and don’t act are like those who glance in the mirror, walk away, and two minutes later have no idea who they are, what they look like.
But whoever catches a glimpse of the revealed counsel of God—the free life!—even out of the corner of his eye, and sticks with it, is no distracted scatterbrain but a man or woman of action. That person will find delight and affirmation in the action.
The more I read the Book of James the more I love his teaching, As the title for this blog suggests The Word of God has such an essential part to play in our life from the day it gives us spiritual birth and then continually through our ongoing spiritual life.
In verse 18 James is echoing Peter’s words in 1 Peter 1:23 NKJV having been born again, not of corruptible seed but incorruptible, through the Word of God which lives and abides forever, MESSAGE . Your old birth came from mortal sperm; your new birth comes from God’s living Word. Just think: a life conceived by God Himself!. Paul tells us that FAITH is born in our hearts when we hear and receive the Word of God. So Christian when you witness constantly quote the Word of God,and Preachers when you preach make sure your preaching is full of the Word of God.
In verse 19 James tells us there are three things we should do:
- Be swift to hear, Lord help us to always have “ears to hear”
- Be slow to speak, James has so much to say about our tongue !!!!!
- Be slow to anger, don’t react, think it through, Let the Lord give you wisdom. Our negative response, does not produce anything good.
In verse 21 we must put our will into the matter and lay aside and reject all filthiness and its fruits of wickedness, but open your heart wide to receive humbly the seed of the Word of God, and let it grow up in our lives. Not only hear the Word but let the Word work, be doers of the Word putting it into practice in our lives.
If you are just a hearer, it like a quick look in the mirror, and walk on, but a doer is not in a hurry but stops and spends time looking into the Word (the perfect law of liberty) and ponders what he sees and lets the Word work. YOU WILL BE BLESSED IN ALL YOU DO v.25
I think James is simply saying here “The Word, The Word, The Word, let it work in you constantly, let it be your daily sustenance Amen
