You can hear the instructions of a teacher a thousand times, but unless you take that information and knowledge and apply it to your life then what did it profit you? You can hear all of the information in the world, how to calculate complex mathematical equations, how to build a home the correct way so that it is structurally sound, or how to cook a delicious meal from a recipe book, but unless you actually do what you have learned, then it didn’t benefit you at all.
You can hear the word of God preached, but unless you apply the teachings that you have learned to your life you will not be in Heaven. You need to apply the words found inside to your life. To be a doer, and not just a hearer only. To be filled with action.
James 1:22-25 “But be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves.
For if any be a hearer of the word, and not a doer, he is like unto a man beholding his natural face in a glass:
For he beholdeth himself, and goeth his way, and straightway forgetteth what manner of man he was.
But whoso looketh into the perfect law of liberty, and continueth therein, he being not a forgetful hearer, but a doer of the work, this man shall be blessed in his deed.”
Just claiming to be a Christian doesn’t necessarily make you one. Just the other day I read about a story of a man pretending to be an officer of the law, even going so far as to pull over speeding motorists on the highway, and writing out penalty fines. But he wasn’t an officer. To be a Christian, as I try to make abundantly clear often, means that you are a follower of the teachings of Christ. Not a just a hearer only, but a doer of His will.
This is something that many people seemed to have forgotten in today’s “modern Christianity” as many people think that having a Bible sitting on their shelf and showing up in a few on a Sunday automatically makes them a Christian. Maybe if they would take a few moments and open up the cover of their Bibles they would find this passage from the Lord:
Luke 6:46-49 “And why call ye me, Lord, Lord, and do not the things which I say?
Whosoever cometh to me, and heareth my sayings, and doeth them, I will shew you to whom he is like:
He is like a man which built an house, and digged deep, and laid the foundation on a rock: and when the flood arose, the stream beat vehemently upon that house, and could not shake it: for it was founded upon a rock.
But he that heareth, and doeth not, is like a man that without a foundation built an house upon the earth; against which the stream did beat vehemently, and immediately it fell; and the ruin of that house was great.”
Jesus is the rock, the foundation of our faith. He is who we need to build our faith on, in our daily lives, in every decision that we make. When we look at others we remember, as followers of Christ, that Jesus died for them so that they could be saved. As His followers, we need to be a doer of His word, and become fishers of men, becoming labourers in the harvest of men’s souls, and deliver them unto Christ.
Ultimately it comes down to an individual’s decision. To follow Jesus or not. To keep His teachings or not.
So what kind of a person are you? Are you a person who has built their faith on the Rock, which is Christ? Is your faith solid, and unmovable, and unshakeable? Do you have an “action faith?”
In Christ,
Andrew
Teufer Lake King James Bible Church 