We Simply Can NOT Afford To Be Hearers Only
The Lord has really impressed upon me lately the importance of being doers of the Word and not hearers only, especially if we’re serious about the restoration of our marriages. If we don’t “DO” the Word of God; if we don’t commit to His way and acknowledge Him in all of our ways; if we don’t seek first His righteousness and His kingdom; and if we don’t trust and love Him with all of our hearts, minds, souls and strength, what do we have? Nothing…because we can’t count on the promises in God’s written Word if we can’t even walk out these basic biblical principles in our daily lives; much less live in accordance with what the Bible teaches us about marriage restoration.
That point can’t be made any more forcefully or any more clearly than it is in James 1:22-24, which says 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 a man who looks at his face in a mirror and, after looking at himself, goes away and immediately forgets what he looks like. Unfortunately, there are a lot of deceived Christians walking around, and even a lot of deceived husbands and wives standing for the restoration of their marriages. Sadly, a lot of men and women standing for marriage restoration read everything they can get their eyes on and sign up to receive every marriage restoration resource known to man, and they can even recite the principles of marriage restoration backwards and forwards, but when it comes to actually DOING them, they don’t even come close! So what good does all of that knowledge do if we can’t put it to good use? Not a bit! Yet James 1:25 tells us But the man who looks intently into the perfect law that gives freedom, and continues to do this, not forgetting what he has heard, but doing it—he will be blessed in what he does. So the best analogy I can think of is something I often tell the women I talk to. I tell them if I offer you a hundred dollar bill, it won’t do you a bit of good until you take it. But even if you take it, it won’t do you a bit of good until you use it by spending it. And that’s the same way it is with the Word of God, it won’t do us any good until we learn to use it through its application in our daily lives. So I pray that ALL of us will start focusing a lot more on how we’re “DOING” the Word to make sure we’re not deceived and being hearers only. So let’s experience the awesome power of simply standing in FAITH and OBEDIENCE on the power and promise of God’s written word because we’ll most assuredly be blessed and encouraged when we do!