Don’t Be Like Mike
“Therefore lay aside all filthiness and overflow of wickedness, and receive with meekness the implanted word, which is able to save your souls. But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves” (Jas. 1:21-22).
Don’t just talk, be a doer and walk the walk.
This passage of Scripture reminds me of a time when (as a kid) I stopped by a friend’s house after school one day. My friend’s name was Mike and he had some health problems. While we were busy playing, Mike’s mother came to the door and handed him a prescription bottle and said, “Mike, it’s time to take your medicine.” After she walked away Mike just tossed it on his chair and went back to playing. A little while later, from another room, she yelled, “Mike, did you hear what I said?” He answered, “Yeah, mom, I heard you.” But still he just sat there and played. Finally, I asked him, “Why don’t you take your medicine? Won’t it help you to get better?” He said, “Yeah, it’s supposed to.” “Well,” I said, “it’s not going to do you a whole lot of good if you don’t use it.”
The same is true with the word of God. You may believe what it says, but if you don’t apply what it says it won’t benefit you at all. Some people talk the talk but are ill equipped to deal with life and are unprepared for the Judgment because they don’t walk the walk. James said, “For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man observing his natural face in a mirror; for he observes himself, goes away, and immediately forgets what kind of man he was. But he who looks into the perfect law of liberty and continues in it, and is not a forgetful hearer but a doer of the work, this one will be blessed in what he does” (Jas. 1:23-25).
Friends, when it comes to the Bible don’t be like Mike. Don’t just hear what God said, do what God said; “for not the hearers of the law are just in the sight of God, but the doers of the law will be justified” (Rom. 2:13).