“Be doers of the word, and not hearers only. Otherwise, you are deceiving yourselves.”
(James 1:22)
Sitting in church won’t make you a saint, anymore than sitting in a garage will make you a car.
Too often, we can hear a good message and be uplifted for a moment, but before long the lift has left us. Worse yet, we can feel as though we’ve changed, just by hearing and understanding.
It’s easy to get excited about an idea, but if we don’t take action, that great idea will quickly find itself on the dust-heap of all the other great ideas that never came to life. If we don’t pick up the right tools and start working with them, nothing will be accomplished.
The same applies to our spiritual lives. It’s one thing to watch a moving sermon online or attend an inspirational event. Those are good things, and we should do them. However, if it doesn’t result in lasting change in our lives, it’s just an exercise in futility.
In the same way, believing in God is pointless, if that belief doesn’t prompt us to be better people, prune sin from our own lives and work to share the message of hope, peace, joy and salvation.
We all know people who act as though they have all the answers, as if they know what everyone else should be doing, yet their own lives are anything but inspiring or righteous.
They are just like the Pharisees Jesus warned about — outwardly pious but inwardly corrupt. This really is what the Bible is all about.
The character of God is peace, joy, hope, faithfulness, selflessness, diligence, perseverance, and so on. It takes work to be like that, because by nature we are all generally selfish, lazy and critical.
We have to be intentional, and it takes effort, to be kind and loving to others — especially when they are not that way toward us.
However, that’s how the message spreads. The light grows when others see us putting our faith and beliefs into action. The more people start to live this way, the better our whole world becomes.
Photo by cottonbro from Pexels
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