“Be Doers Of The Word”
Imagine with me the following scenario. You are having a conversation with a loved one on the couch (you get to pick whether it’s a spouse, parent, child, grandparent, friend—whomever you like). You realize that you left something on the end table next to their end of the couch. You politely ask them to pass you the item. To which there is absolutely no response. No movement, no verbal acknowledgment of your request… just silence.
What would you do? You’d likely repeat your request, assuming the person didn’t hear you. If they did hear you and chose not to respond, then you would be upset because they are ignoring you.
So, now the conversation turns, and you tell them that it really hurt your feelings that they ignored you. And they say, “I’m sorry I didn’t pass you the remote.” They apologized for not doing the task, but they missed the heart of your hurt.
In James 1:22–25 we find these words:
“But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves. For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man who looks intently at his natural face in a mirror. For he looks at himself and goes away and at once forgets what he was like. But the one who looks into the perfect law, the law of liberty, and perseveres—being no hearer who forgets but a doer who acts—he will be blessed in his doing.”
What is the heart of the request here? It’s that we put into action what we have been taught from Scripture.
We may not like to admit it, but in our application of God’s Word, we are often like the silent loved one in the story above—someone who doesn’t respond and then misses the point.
God wants our obedience—absolutely.
It’s one of the ways we show that we are His disciples.
John 15:8–10 says:
“By this my Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit and so prove to be my disciples. As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Abide in my love. If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and abide in his love.”
But God doesn’t want us to listen to Him like an authoritative parent, there’s more to it than that.
God also wants us to put into practice what we learn because God wants us to be a means of grace for the world.
In his sermon The Means of Grace (1746), John Wesley famously defined them as:
“Outward signs, words, or actions, ordained of God, and appointed for this end—to be the ordinary channels whereby He might convey to men preventing, justifying, or sanctifying grace.”
God wants us to be a way by which His love for the world—and His justifying and sanctifying grace—is communicated to it.
The best way for us to do that is to be doers of the Word—to have an active response to what we have learned from God.
Often we receive instruction from God’s Word that we read (or hear), and it goes in but doesn’t activate. It just stays dormant. Then we apologize for not doing the assignment but miss the heart of God in these instructions. Which is that others would be blessed through them as well.
This week I came across a quote that I encountered almost ten years ago. It was so long ago that I have no idea who said it or where I encountered it, but I think it applies here:
“Someone is waiting to experience God on the other side of your obedience.”
Our prelude song this week, “Broken Vessels,” contains a line that I think would do us well to make a consistent prayer in our lives as we start 2026:
“Take this heart, Lord; I’ll be Your vessel,
to the world to see Your life in me.”
Adam