“What good is it, my brothers, if someone claims to have faith, but has no deeds? Can such faith save him? Suppose a brother or sister is without clothes and daily food. If one of you tells him, “Go in peace; stay warm and well fed,” but does not provide for his physical needs, what good is that? So too, faith by itself, if it does not result in action, is dead,” James 2:14-17, NIV.
I enjoy cooking. Chopping up what needs to be added to any dish is monotonous work but necessary, just as necessary as the stove or the oven. Without a means to heat food, one would have raw ingredients sitting in a pan, waiting, and in time rotting. We need heat to cook.
We also need heat to grow spiritually. We need to work out our faith with the energy (heat) needed to produce results. If all we do is read our Bibles (a very good thing to do), but never DO what’s required to grow, we remain raw veggies in a pan waiting to be cooked.
Has there ever been a time that while reading God’s Word you skipped ahead due to the fact you didn’t understand what was being said or what was meant by it? Me, too.
Before we can work out our faith and DO what is the right thing for us to do, we must understand it. Skipping ahead or ignoring passages because they’re difficult doesn’t help us at all. I know this all too well. We need to do the work to understand.
“Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a worker who does not need to be ashamed and who correctly handles the word of truth,” 2 Timothy 2:15.
“Correctly handling” means to study it until one understands it.
It wasn’t until I was reading how much God loved me that I finally stopped and asked, “If love is of God and from God and demanded of us, what is love?” I needed to work out this problem. I needed to be taught what love looked like from God’s perspective.
As I learned about what love was/is, the challenges of application provided endless possibilities of doable tasks. I could actually love my enemies with God’s love by choosing to care for them. I wasn’t under any obligation to “feel” anything, I just had to do the work. If my enemy dropped a pencil, instead of kicking it away, I could pick it up and hand it to them. Loving my enemy became a work I could do.
I’m not a fan of reading the Bible in a year. I’ve done it, and for me I gained knowledge but was more concerned about turning the page to complete my assignment. I never took the time to understand what needed to be done. Maybe we should read the Bible through in two years, or for some of us, five years. Reading the Bible shouldn’t be a competitive sport. We need to read to learn and know how to love God. Then we need do what He has asked us to do.
How are you correctly handling the Word of God today? Are you “applying heat” and doing what you know is the right thing to do?
Father,
Thank you that You have given us a lifetime to get to know You. Thank You that You lead us all on Your path of righteousness at your perfect pace to help us learn and grow the best way possible. It’s a journey tailor-made by You, the Creator God.
Teach us to know, and help us to do what’s right. We need You. We want to be doers of the Word and not merely hearers of it.
“Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says. Anyone who listens to the word but does not do what it says is like someone who looks at his face in a mirror and, after looking at himself, goes away and immediately forgets what he looks like. But whoever looks intently into the perfect law that gives freedom, and continues in it—not forgetting what they have heard, but doing it—they will be blessed in what they do,” James 1:22-25.
We desire to understand what we have just read in Your Word, so we can do the work necessary to be useful to You.
We are Your servants,
Amen.
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