In short order

Do what God’s teaching says; don’t just listen and do nothing. When you only sit and listen, you are fooling yourselves. Hearing God’s teaching and doing nothing is like looking at your face in the mirror and doing nothing about what you saw. You go away and immediately forget how bad you looked. But when you look into God’s perfect law that sets people free, pay attention to it. If you do what it says, you will have God’s blessing. Never just listen to his teaching and forget what you heard. (James 1:22-25)

I share often about 'hearing', but 'doing' nothing with what we 'hear'. Why? The importance of being a 'doer of the Word' cannot be outlived, outsourced, or outdone! We need to incorporate the Word of God into our daily lives - making the teachings therein the source of our instructions on how to live with one another. Ever look at yourself in the mirror and be so dissatisfied with what you are seeing that you just turned away and tried to forget what you saw? You likely wanted a 'different picture' reflected back, but we don't get a 'different picture' until Christ makes a difference in our hearts.

When we look into the Word of God, the 'picture' we see reflected back to us can either be quite concerning, or perhaps it is quite satisfying. The difference is determined in how much the Word of God has become more than just 'good words' to us. When the Word of God is allowed to ruminate deep within our spirit, we find there will be a change of heart that affects our minds and eventually begins to affect our 'appearance'. I am not sure how God does all that work within us to make us 'new', but I am confident he has begun it in each of us. We may not see the reflection today that we expected to see, or even hoped was possible, but we can trust that when we are taking in the Word and allowing it to work within us, the reflection is changing.

Many believe the Word of God is outdated, but truth is never outdated or outdone. Truth remains when all else fades away. We might have been believing something that is 'close to truth' in our lives, but it actually is not truth at all. If we allow all manner of 'untruth' to come into our lives, we might just find ourselves getting a little confused as to what is really true. If we want answers, we look to the Word of God, not some show on TV or self-help guru. We find truth in Christ and him alone. Our 'reality' is sometimes clouded by what we have 'added to' truth within our lives. Ask God to ferret out any untruth we have believed, and he will go about this work in rather short order. Just sayin!