Are You a Doer of the Word of God
Are You a Doer of the Word of God?
April 2009
By Alan Jay Binger
“But be doers of the word, and not hearers only,
deceiving yourselves….”
(James 1:22-25)
Something has been increasingly bothering me over the last several months. I have observed that many believers who are attend services regularly, go to conferences, read their Bibles and listen to messages on CD’s, etc., etc.are nevertheless involved in sinful behavior just like the world. I tell you that it baffles me! How can it be that an individual will sit under an excellent Bible teacher, enjoy message after message, yet still live in disobedience to God’s Word? You would think that the very fact they are regularly exposing themselves to the Word of God would have a life-changing effect on their lives.But all too often this is simply not the case. In essence, disobedience to God’s Word is rampant among those who claim to be God’s people.
Now, the Scriptures have much to say about obeying the Lord. It is a recurring message throughout the Bible. The fact that the Lord emphasizes obedience so much shows how critical it is. Yet obedience to the Lord is often down-played by preachers and teachers, with the emphasis instead being on our own well-being if we take hold of the promises contained in the Word of God. But those very promises are always contingent on our obedience. As it says in Isaiah 1:19: “If you are willing and obedient, you shall eat the good of the land.” Far too many people are willing, but they are not obedient. But as we shall see, obedience is a main key to all of God’s blessings. Even more importantly, it is necessary for us to gain entrance into the Kingdom of God. Now, of course, we are saved by grace and can do nothing to earn our salvation. But the Lord nevertheless expects us to obey His commandments and not to willfully disobey them. Tragically, many individuals have deceived themselves into believing that things are alright between them and God because they sit under good teachers and ministries and call themselves believers. However, the following words by Yeshua need to be taken with the utmost seriousness:
“But why do you call “Lord, Lord’ and do not do the
things which I say.”
(Luke 7:46)
“Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ shall
enter the Kingdom of Heaven, but he who does the
will of My Father in heaven. Many will say to Me in
that day, ‘Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Your
Name, cast out demons in Your Name, and done many
wonders in Your Name? And then I will declare to them,
‘I never new you; depart from Me, you who practice
lawlessness.’”
(Matthew 7:21-23)
Notice that Yeshua refers to these individuals as “you who practice lawlessness”. This means that they are routinely committing sin without repenting from it, or even asking the Lord to help them change. In other words, they are living a life of willful disobedience. The tragic thing is that many people think that they are obeying God merely because they love to hear good preaching and teaching, as if that were the same as obeying what they are hearing. All too many people have fooled themselves into believing that they are in right standing with the Lord merely because they love to hear the Word of God and to be among other believers, while at the same time they are living in sin. Yeshua had something to say about people who enjoyed listening to Him preach but who did not do what he said:
“And He said to them: ‘Strive to enter through the narrow gate,
for many, I say to you, will seek to enter and will not be able.
When once the Master of the house has risen up and shut the door,
saying: ‘Lord, Lord, open for us’, and He will say answer and say to
you: ‘I do not know you, where you are from’, then you will begin to
say: ‘We ate and drank in Your presence, and You taught in our streets’.
But He will say: ‘I tell you I do not know you, where you are from.
Depart from Me, all you workers of iniquity’. There will be weeping and
nashing of teeth, when you see Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and all the
prophets in the kingdom of God, and yourselves thrust out. They will come
from the east and the west, from the north and the south, and sit down in the
kingdom of God. And indeed there are last who will be first, and there are
first who will be last.”
(Luke 13:23-29)
The people whom Yeshua is speaking about in this passage are ones who were acquainted with Him, but had never come to really know Him. They listened to what He said, and even enjoyed fellowship with Him, but they did not submit themselves to His Lordship. They were not true sons of Abraham, who was an obedient servant of God, as were Isaac and Jacob. Rather, they were servants of sin and iniquity, living life the way they wanted to live it, and not in obedience to God’s Word.
The Apostle John has spoken directly to how we can know that we truly know the Lord:
“By this we know that we know Him, if we keep His commandments. He who says ‘I know Him’, and does not keep His commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him. But whoever keeps His word, truly the love of God is perfected in Him.”
(I John 2:3-5)
This is very strong language, but it is the truth! How many people say that they “know the Lord”, but they are living a lifestyle of sin? God calls such individuals liars. And what happens to liars? Revelation 21:8 warns:
“But the cowardly, unbelieving, abominable, murderers,
sexually immoral, sorcerers, idolaters, and all liars
shall have their part in the lake which burns with fire and
brimstone, which is the second death.”
How many people say that they “love the Lord”, but they live lives that demonstrate the opposite?
So how do we know if we truly love the Lord? Well, Yeshua told us how:
“He who has My commandments and keeps them, it is he who loves Me.
*******
If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word; and My Father will love him,
and we will come to him and make Our home with him. He who does not
love Me does not keep My words…”
(John 14:21; 23-24)
And just what are Yeshua’s commandments? Well, I can think of two major ones. First, we are to forgive anyone and everyone who offends us or sins against us-not matter what:
“And whenever you stand praying, if you have anything against anyone,
forgive him, that you Father in Heaven may also forgive you your trespasses.
But if you do not forgive, neither will your Father in Heaven forgive your
trespasses.”
(Mark 11:25-26)
What happens to someone who does not have their sins forgiven? Do you think they will be allowed into Heaven? I think not! Yet how many so-called believers hold a grudge against a fellow believer, family member, parent, or some other person, and flat out refuse to forgive them? The parable of the unforgiving servant needs to be taken seriously. In that parable (Matthew 18:22-35), the servant of a king owes the king an astronomical sum of money which he could never hope to repay, and the king orders him, his wife and children to be sold into slavery and the debt paid. But when the servant begs the king to forgive him, the king has compassion on him, and forgives him the huge debt. However, this servant went to a fellow servant, who owed him a relatively small sum worth about a few months wages, and demands immediate payment. When his fellow servant asks for time to repay the debt, this man refuses to give him any grace and has him thrown into prison. When the king hears about this, he is furious. He then calls for this servant and tells him that he should have had compassion on his fellow servant the way he (the king) had had compassion on him. But because this servant had refused to forgive the debt of his fellow servant, the king revoked his earlier forgiveness of this wicked servant’s huge debt, and ordered him to be punished until he paid all of the debt. Yeshua concluded this parable by saying:
“So My Heavenly Father also will do to you if each of you, from his heart,
does not forgive his brother his trespasses.”
(Matthew 18:35)
There are untold numbers of people who think they are in right-standing with God yet who are withholding their forgiveness from one or more individuals who have offended them. Are you one of them? If so, repent and obey God right now by forgiving them! Nothing is worth going to Hell for- certainly not your refusal to forgive someone. When you refuse to forgive someone, in essence, you are expressing hatred towards that individual. When you do so, you put your very eternal destiny in jeopardy. As John further wrote:
“We know that we have passed from death unto life, because we love
the brethren. He who does not love his brother abides in death. Whoever
hates his brother is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal
life abiding in him.”
(I John 3:13-15)
This verse also brings up the second major commandment that Yeshua gave us”
“A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another, as
I have loved you.”
(John 13:34)
Individuals who say they love the Lord, but who refuse to forgive someone and willfully refuse to obey this commandment of loving our bothers and sisters in the Lord are putting there very souls in danger of eternal separation from God. This is willful sin and the Lord will not tolerate it anymore!
Now, may people talk a good game, and they sound so spiritual, but whether or not they are obeying the Lord in these two areas is the real test of their spirituality-and ours. As Yeshua said:
“If you know these things, blessed are you if you do them.”
(John 13:17)
And as He also said:
“Blessed are those who hear the Word of God, and keep it.”
(Luke 11:28)
And again:
“Therefore, whoever hears these sayings of Mine, and does them, I will liken
him to a wise man who built his house on the rock, and the rain descended, the
floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house; and it did not fall, for it
was founded on the rock.
But everyone who hears these sayings of Mine, and does not do them, will be
like a foolish man who built his house on the sand; and the rain descended, the floods
came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, and it fell. And great was its fall.”
(Matthew 7:21 -26)
We must make it our business to be doers of the Word. So how do we do this? We must have the attitude that whenever we read the Word of God or hear a message preached, etc. we do it with a desire to learn how to obey the Lord and to apply what we have learned to our lives. This is what the Lord told Joshua before he led the Children of Israel into the Promised Land:
“Only be strong and very courageous, that you may observe to doaccording to all the
law which Moses My servant commanded you; do not turn from it to the right hand or
the left, that you may prosper wherever you go. This Book of the Law shall not depart
from your mouth, but you shall meditate in it day and night, that you may observe to do
according to all that is written in it. For then you will make your way prosperous; and
then you will have good success.”
(Joshua 1:7-8)
Whenever we are reading the Word of God, or hearing it preached, we must always ask the Spirit of God to held us to “observe to do” according to whatever truth is being taught. If this is our desire, we will avoid the pitfall warned of by James when he wrote:
“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 observing his
natural face in a mirror; for he observes himself, goes away, and immediately
forgets what kind of man he was. But the one who looks into the perfect law of
liberty and continues in it, and is not a forgetful hearer but a doer of the work,
this one will be blessed in his deed.”
(James 1:22-25)
So many people are deceiving themselves into thinking that because they read and hear the Word of God regularly, that things are fine in their relationship with the Lord. But the way to know that you are not being deceived is if you are making a conscious determination to obey the Lord to the best of your ability and to be open to His correction wherever you may be failing to do so. Now, the Lord knows that we all have much growing to do. So I am not saying that if you slip up and sin that this means that you are under condemnation. No, the passages I have quoted are referring to individuals who live a lifestyle of sin or who flat out refuse to obey God when they know better. To the person who grieves over his sins and failings, the Lord has tender mercy and compassion for that individual. I think I John 1:8-9 is appropriate here:
“If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth
is not in him. If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive
us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”
We must always live in an attitude of repentance. This means that we are always open to the Holy Spirit’s correction and never think that we have “arrived” at a state of spiritual perfection where we could not sin. We are always aware of our moment-by-moment need for the Lord’s grace and power to live a life pleasing to Him. But for the person who knowingly refuses to obey the Lord-such as willfully refusing to forgive someone who has offended you- the Scripture gives this solemn warning:
“For if we sin willfully after we have received the knowledge
of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins, but a certain
fearful expectation of judgment and fiery indignation which will
devour the adversaries. Anyone who rejected Moses’ law dies
without mercy on the testimony of two or three witnesses. Of how
much worse punishment, do you suppose, will he be thought worthy
who has trampled the Son of God underfoot, counted the blood of the
covenant by which he was sanctified a common thing, and insulted the
Spirit of Grace?”
(Hebrews 10:26-29)
But let us end on a positive note:
“But we are not of those who draw to perdition, but of those
Who believe to the saving of the soul.”
(Hebrews 10:39)