Good Monday Morning (1-03-11),

There is a scripture so familiar we can all quote it. It is this: Be doers of the Word, not just hearers only.

But, just as there is a difference between hearing and doing, there is a difference between quoting and knowing. As one well-known teacher recently explained, the church has become permeated with a deadly mindset — an expectation of being entertained and, having been entertained, walking away thinking we have been filled.

We have big choirs, fancy buildings, and padded pews. We have sweet smiling greeters, softly playing background music and trained prayers to lift our needs to the Father.

None of this is wrong.

What is desperately dangerous is the atmosphere all this supports. If we have shouted “Amen” to a moving sermon, cried real tears during anointed worship or got tingles in our toes when someone prayed for us, then we think we’ve been to church and that is all that is necessary.

Nothing could be further from the truth. And believing this becomes a deception of the worst kind, because it is a deception that leaves us vulnerable to the next storm that comes against us.

Hearing is not doing. The Word makes that clear. But “knowing” is also not doing. Agreeing with a scripture, being able to quote it, even being able to teach it, is still not doing.

At the risk of oversimplification — only doing is doing.

Jesus taught it. Both Matthew and Luke considered it important enough to repeat. You will find the account of the foolish and wise builders in Matthew chapter 7 and Luke chapter 6. In this parable both builders heard the Word. Both faced violent and cataclysmic storms. One built a foundation that withstood the attack and wasn’t even shaken. The other had no foundation and immediately his house was washed away and the fall of that house (that man, his life, his faith, his confidence, perhaps even his life) was very great.

There was only one thing that separated these two men. One of them did the word that he heard. He was a doer of the word. He obeyed the voice of God as God revealed truths to him. The other heard but did not do the word. He heard. He knew. He sat in church and took notes and said “Preach it” and had lunch with the pastor. He did not put that word, that direction, that revelation, into practice.

There is no mystery why some people withstand life’s difficulties and some do not.

God’s Word is clear. Some of us do the word. Some of us do not do the Word.

Some of us hear and do. Some us hear but do not do.

It is not God’s will that we fold beneath the first strong gust of adverse wind. He has called us overcomers. He has promised blessings and victories and strengths and prophesied that we would go from glory to glory.

There is no mystery when we do not do those things. If there is an area of my life where I am continually not getting victory I need to ask God to bring things to my remembrance.

Was there something He told me to do that I did not do? Did I hear a sermon on forgiveness, walk out talking about how great a teaching, and then refuse to forgive someone? Did my pastor counsel me regarding a situation, give me steps to do, and I refused because I thought I knew better than he did, or because there was something God wanted out of my life but I didn’t want to give it up?

God in His great mercy has given us His word. It is profitable for all things. When we hear it but do not do it we are refusing to esteem Him. In essence, we are calling His direction…His wisdom…something unimportant. In doing so, or in this case not doing, we wound the Holy Spirit — our teacher and our guide. We, in essence, demonstrate that in our heart we think we know better than God.

Hearing is not doing. Knowing is not doing. Intending, planning, hoping is not doing.

But if we do not do what we hear then we deceive ourselves: into believing that we are right when we are wrong, safe when we are at risk, deserving of blessings when we are in disobedience, strong when we are weak.

The answer is simplicity itself. Hear it and then do it. Just do it.

“But be doers of the Word (obey the message), and not merely listeners to it, betraying yourselves (into deception by reasoning contrary to the Truth)…But he who looks carefully into the faultless law of liberty, and is faithful to it and perseveres in looking into it, being not a heedless listener who forgets but an active doer (who obeys), he shall be blessed in his doing (his life of obedience).” James 1:22-25

Laurie Gross