James has been an incredibly convicting book. We are yet on chapter 1 but I am finding constant areas of reproach and yet encouragement along this journey. Today, yet again is one of them. Oh to be doers and not just hearers of the Word.
This passage, was incredibly convicting. It brings to mind the very true reality of being able to come to God's Word, every morning or evening or whenever you make the time, read it and then walk away as if nothing was different. Its like sitting under a beautifully convicting Sunday morning sermon, then going home putting on the football game or grabbing your shopping coupons and resuming every day life...as if it never happened. You fulfilled Sunday obligations, can under the authority of the Word and then went home and forgot all about it. Ugh. This happens too often. Or I will listen to a sermon on my walk or feel so impassioned by my reading in the morning and then by 10am I am cranky, short with my children, muttering things I shouldn't and consumed with things that in 100 years won't even matter.
Its easier than we think to look in the mirror and immediately forget what we look like. Its easy to be in the Word and see ourselves through the lenses of God's Law realize we are sinners and then go back to our everyday. May it not be so anymore!
Something that has been a challenge to me right now is walking through a few trials in light of what we are learning. I feel very convicted of my typical pattern in trials and now am face to face with biblical truths and exhortations on how to handle it- and it is still SO HARD! It is hard to walk worthy of the calling that we have been brought into. Its easier to fall into habitual patterns that to make the effort to die to self and give it to God. SO. HARD. But this passage reminds me again and again how much I can be a hearer only, and that is not what I want. The goodness of Christ reminds us to be not just hearers but doers of the Word.
Today- Take some time, see where you need to change on this. Ask God to reveal where you struggle to be a hearer only. And allow God to change your heart. May God soften our hearts and renew our minds to transform us into His likeness day by day!
Worship today: His Mercy is More
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