Listen to this great advice from Andrew Murray*: "Always study in God's word in the spirit of unreserved surrender to obey. If you accustom yourself to study the Bible without an earnest and very definite purpose to obey, you can get hardened in disobedience. Never read God's will concerning you without honestly giving up yourself to do it immediately, and asking grace to do so."
Look at how James instructs us according to truth: "Therefore, putting aside all filthiness and all that remains of wickedness, in humility receive the word implanted, which is able to save your souls. But 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." James 1:21-25
The Bible tells us that we are not ignorant of Satan's schemes (2 Cor. 2:11). I see a scheme at work today, in an effort to make us struggle in the area of obedience, that is twofold: First the enemy tries to keep us away from the truth of the word with the lie that it too hard to understand or irrelevant to today. So this may draw us to get 'busy' with other nice, good Christian material or activities, but the life-giving, powerful, inspired word of God that equips us (2 Tim 3:16,17) and judges the thoughts and intentions of the heart (Heb. 4:12) and changes us and encourages us and gives us hope (Romans 15:4) and transforms us (Rom. 12:2) is stolen away from us. OR secondly, for the Christian who is studying and taking the word seriously, there is the lie that just knowing a truth, having intellectual knowledge, is good enough. We may have a yearning for more and more knowledge but at the same time be unwilling to deny ourselves and act on it or even to consider what obedience to that truth means lived out in our very lives, and the blessed consequences of obedience are stolen away from us.
I believe that we can fall into either of these traps at different times without even realizing that we are buying into the subtle lies. We must examine ourselves.
"God has given us His word to tell us what He wants us to do and what grace He has provided to enable us to do it. How sad to think it a pious thing just to read that Word without any earnest effort to obey it! May God keep us from this terrible sin!" Andrew Murray
We must be hearers! Hearers first- we must be in the Word. But it can't stop there, we must be effectual doers. "Therefore everyone who hears these words of Mine and acts on them, may be compared to a wise man who built his house on the rock. And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and slammed against that house; and yet it did not fall, for it had been founded on the rock." Matt. 7:24.
Oh Lord, raise up effectual doers, and may we be counted among them. Equipped in every good thing to do Your will (Heb. 13:21), may we be 'doers of Your word'!
*from The School of Obedience (1898).
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