Devotion #50

Hi, Everyone.
I'm late posting today. Sleep issues, but it's all good. I'm sorry for any inconvenience to you, though. Today's devotion is from my personal journal dated May 28, 2007.

     Yesterday's "lesson" was about how important it is to feed on God's Word daily, to meditate on it, to be strengthened by it. Today, the Lord took me a step further, reminding me that it's not enough merely to read His Word.
     James 1:21-25 says, "Therefore, putting aside all filthiness and all that remains of wickedness, in humility recieve the word implanted, which is able to save your souls. Prove yourselves doers of the word, and not merely hearers who delude themselves. For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man who looks at his natural face in a mirror; for once he has looked at himself and gone away, he has immediately forgotten what kind of person he was. But one who looks intently at the perfect law, the law of liberty, and abides by it, not having become a forgetful hearer but an effectual doer, this man will be blessed in what he does."
     It's not enough merely to read and meditate on God's Word. I must implant His Word in my heart and then be a "doer" of the Word. Without obeying the Word, it is all just head knowledge.
     God's Word shows me what I look like. It reveals places in my heart and life that need to be taken care of, cleaned out. However, if I don't act on what God, through His Word, shows me, what good is it. I must obey, and I must obey whether I feel like it or not. God honors obedience.
     Through I Thessalonians 4:4, God tells me that I am to know how to possess my own vessel [body] in sanctification and honor, and He, in I Corinthians 9:25, encourages me to "exercise self-control in all things." There is a promise, in James 1:25, that if I look intently at God's "law of liberty," and if I abide by it by being "an effectual doer" of it, I "will be blessed" in whatever I do.
     The blessing comes as I submit to God's Word and live my day in such a way that I evidence this sanctification, honor, and self-control. I want every blessing God has for me, so it is important to read and meditate on God's Word, then put it into practice. I want to show God how much I love Him by acting on His Word, by "walking" it out in my daily life.

Today, consider how often you act on God's Word, walking it out in your daily life. Watch this 7-minute video dramatization of doing just that. 
http://www.godtube.com/view_video.php?viewkey=c1e90bd464d4b3 776d32

Blessings,
Mary