What are you doing?
What are you doing?
James 1:22-25
But don’t just listen to God’s word. You must do what it says. Otherwise, you are only fooling yourselves. For if you listen to the word and don’t obey, it is like glancing at your face in a mirror. You see yourself, walk away, and forget what you look like. But if you look carefully into the perfect law that sets you free, and if you do what it says and don’t forget what you heard, then God will bless you for doing it.
The Big Question I read is “What are you doing?”. What you do is connected to freedom and your blessing.
Let’s GET REAL...Ultimately the level of the love you walk in, the degree of friendship you have with God, the effectiveness of your prayer life and how much prayer is answered (John 15), the bondage and freedom you walk in (John 8:32), and the solidity and fragility of your life (Matt. 7), the effectiveness of evangelism (John 13), and the fruitfulness of your life (John 15), is all dependant on a simple question... What are you doing?
Like a Dad that tells their kids that he loves them and that they will always be his kids, but if they want allowance (greater blessing) then they will have to do something like clean their room. If they don’t clean their room then their lack of action will cheat themselves of their allowance. Faith without works is dead. You have a life, hope, future, inheritance, identity, and authority in Christ that you have to live out. Do something with it.
James is pleading with the people that say they love Jesus and is telling them that there is more. More freedom, more blessing, a depth in life that they are cheating themselves out of. The life they ultimately want is free and found in Jesus and simply in following Him, but they seem to do everything but what brings them the life they want.
We all do this. We get busy with the business of self and cheat ourselves out of significance. We struggle with distraction and get caught up in the urgent, and live our lives chasing squirrels and squeaky wheels and get to the end of our day or the end of our days and ask ourselves, does any of this matter? What are we doing?
If we truly believe the the truth of the gospel then it demands action. When we look into the mirror of the WORD we will see our flaws and short comings in light of His perfection. It is like looking into a mirror and seeing the lunch you just ate all over your face and saying “I look fine”. It’s like waking up in the morning and seeing your pillow lined face and crazy hair and doing nothing about it and going work. What? Who does that? No one! It demands action. No one looks at the toothpaste drool left on your collar and says I’ll leave because I need to brush my teeth later. No, we fix it. James says the word of God is a mirror that shows you how much you need Jesus and also who you are in Jesus. It will show you the ways you aren’t being who God called you to be, but also reminds you and calls to rise up to become all that God has called you to be. This demands action.
Do we believe Jesus? If so, then we will act. If our beliefs do not have action, then ultimately we do not believe what we say we believe enough. Belief that has action is faith. Faith without works is dead. If we do not have faith (belief + action), we will lack power, freedom, blessing, etc... (James 1:22-26)
Faith is the currency of the kingdom. Without action our faith is bankrupt (dead). God wants to bring you from bankruptcy to blessing. Put some actions to your beliefs. Do something and watch God move into your life
Obedience precedes Blessing. James 1:22-26 if you do the word you will be blessed. are we obedient
Obedience precedes revival. Obedience is faith. Faithful obedience brings a move of God. Israel say the Red Sea split, deliverance from Egypt (their enemy), freedom from captivity, provision in the desert, and ultimately the promises of God come to fruition in their lives because of faithful obedience. Joshua, Gideon , Elijah, and every other great man of God saw great things happen not because they were greate necessarily, but they obeyed and say God move. God said it so they did it.
I’ve been reading through the book of John. Over and over again Jesus does something incredible and miraculous and He turns to His disciples and says this is how this all works “I do what the Father does and say what the Father says”. It’s Obedience.
The challenge - Go look intently in the MIRROR of the word and do something with what you see. Wipe the food off your face, change your shirt, brush yor hair (so to speak). Repent and remove sin, give up on apathy, lethargy and laziness. It demands action. But on the flip side, the gospel truth about you is that you are a child of God with a hope and a future. You have been called, chosen, and have everything you need for this life and godliness. God has given you power and authority to walk into everything He has called you to. Look in the Mirror of the word and be reminded of some God dreams and the person He has called you to be and become.
Do Something. Be doers of the word.
What are we doing?
But don’t just listen to God’s word. You must do what it says. Otherwise, you are only fooling yourselves. For if you listen to the word and don’t obey, it is like glancing at your face in a mirror. You see yourself, walk away, and forget what you look like. But if you look carefully into the perfect law that sets you free, and if you do what it says and don’t forget what you heard, then God will bless you for doing it.
The Big Question I read is “What are you doing?”. What you do is connected to freedom and your blessing.
Let’s GET REAL...Ultimately the level of the love you walk in, the degree of friendship you have with God, the effectiveness of your prayer life and how much prayer is answered (John 15), the bondage and freedom you walk in (John 8:32), and the solidity and fragility of your life (Matt. 7), the effectiveness of evangelism (John 13), and the fruitfulness of your life (John 15), is all dependant on a simple question... What are you doing?
Like a Dad that tells their kids that he loves them and that they will always be his kids, but if they want allowance (greater blessing) then they will have to do something like clean their room. If they don’t clean their room then their lack of action will cheat themselves of their allowance. Faith without works is dead. You have a life, hope, future, inheritance, identity, and authority in Christ that you have to live out. Do something with it.
James is pleading with the people that say they love Jesus and is telling them that there is more. More freedom, more blessing, a depth in life that they are cheating themselves out of. The life they ultimately want is free and found in Jesus and simply in following Him, but they seem to do everything but what brings them the life they want.
We all do this. We get busy with the business of self and cheat ourselves out of significance. We struggle with distraction and get caught up in the urgent, and live our lives chasing squirrels and squeaky wheels and get to the end of our day or the end of our days and ask ourselves, does any of this matter? What are we doing?
If we truly believe the the truth of the gospel then it demands action. When we look into the mirror of the WORD we will see our flaws and short comings in light of His perfection. It is like looking into a mirror and seeing the lunch you just ate all over your face and saying “I look fine”. It’s like waking up in the morning and seeing your pillow lined face and crazy hair and doing nothing about it and going work. What? Who does that? No one! It demands action. No one looks at the toothpaste drool left on your collar and says I’ll leave because I need to brush my teeth later. No, we fix it. James says the word of God is a mirror that shows you how much you need Jesus and also who you are in Jesus. It will show you the ways you aren’t being who God called you to be, but also reminds you and calls to rise up to become all that God has called you to be. This demands action.
Do we believe Jesus? If so, then we will act. If our beliefs do not have action, then ultimately we do not believe what we say we believe enough. Belief that has action is faith. Faith without works is dead. If we do not have faith (belief + action), we will lack power, freedom, blessing, etc... (James 1:22-26)
Faith is the currency of the kingdom. Without action our faith is bankrupt (dead). God wants to bring you from bankruptcy to blessing. Put some actions to your beliefs. Do something and watch God move into your life
Obedience precedes Blessing. James 1:22-26 if you do the word you will be blessed. are we obedient
Obedience precedes revival. Obedience is faith. Faithful obedience brings a move of God. Israel say the Red Sea split, deliverance from Egypt (their enemy), freedom from captivity, provision in the desert, and ultimately the promises of God come to fruition in their lives because of faithful obedience. Joshua, Gideon , Elijah, and every other great man of God saw great things happen not because they were greate necessarily, but they obeyed and say God move. God said it so they did it.
I’ve been reading through the book of John. Over and over again Jesus does something incredible and miraculous and He turns to His disciples and says this is how this all works “I do what the Father does and say what the Father says”. It’s Obedience.
The challenge - Go look intently in the MIRROR of the word and do something with what you see. Wipe the food off your face, change your shirt, brush yor hair (so to speak). Repent and remove sin, give up on apathy, lethargy and laziness. It demands action. But on the flip side, the gospel truth about you is that you are a child of God with a hope and a future. You have been called, chosen, and have everything you need for this life and godliness. God has given you power and authority to walk into everything He has called you to. Look in the Mirror of the word and be reminded of some God dreams and the person He has called you to be and become.
Do Something. Be doers of the word.
What are we doing?
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