‘Be doers of the Word’

Suggested reading: JAMES chapter 1

What part does God’s word play in our hearts and lives. James reminds us that it was the divine means used in our salvation. God the Father loves to give us good and perfect gifts, verse 17, and one of these is ‘new life’: ‘of His own will begat He us with the word of truth’, verse 18. In the light of this, James encourages us to ‘be swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath’ verse 19.

The importance of God’s word does not begin and end at new birth. It is vital to our spiritual growth that we are quick to hear what God has to say to us, as this will save us from swift and unwise reactions to what we hear. We cannot lose our salvation, but we need to be saved constantly from the power of sin in our lives. We must strip away all forms of uncleanness and humbly receive (in a deliberate way) the divinely implanted word of God, verse 21.

However, it is not sufficient to be hearers of the Word; therefore, James also challenges us to be ‘doers of the word’, verse 22. There is a danger that we can treat God’s word like the man who looks into the mirror at his natural face, considers his image, goes away, fails to return and forgets what he has seen, verses 23-24. James says that, unlike this man, we should spend time looking intently and repeatedly into the ‘perfect law of liberty’, found in the word of God, verse 25, which will give us an accurate picture of ourselves and reveal to us how God wants us to live. His word is complete and liberates us in such a way that we want to obey it!