There are a lot of people in your community that want to do great things.
There are a lot of people in your church that want to give glory to God.
There are a lot of people in the church down the street that want to spread the Gospel.
There are a lot of people that want to do stuff. I want to do stuff. You want to do stuff.
I guess that is the first step.
I certainly will not discount studying the Word. Studying, mediating, thinking and understanding the Bible is fundamental to our Christian life. I recently did a radio program in Harlan on being a deep thinker and student of God’s word. But…
I would suggest that study is certainly not the most important part of Christianity. Fundamental, yes, but not paramount. Not nearly.
Why is the majority of our time “in church” spent only hearing the word?
Why do we value knowledge far more than action?
Why do we live and act as if on Judgment Day we’ll be handed a stack of questions, a pencil, and a scantron?
I think Matthew 25:31-46 is something we ought to think about…oh the irony. How about Matthew 25:31-46 is something we ought to do something about.
Our knowledge should drive us to action and our action should be founded in knowledge.
The church is a hospital for the sick and broken. A hospital wouldn’t really be a hospital if all it did was teach doctors how to go help people, but then the doctors never actually did. A hospital wouldn’t be much help if someone sick came in and everyone there said “shhh…we’re about to hear about helping sick people” and that is all they ever did.
I have a desire – you probably do too. But to what extent do we take James 1:22 seriously? But be doers of the word and not hearers only, deceiving yourself. I think we focus on the first part of that verse a lot – be a doer, not just a hearer! But, as a hearer only, we need to understand….we are deceived. Misled. Deluded. Uninformed. Lied to.
So the question I just want to leave this post asking myself and asking you is – are we both? Are we great hearers and great doers? Do we want to do awesome things and spread the Gospel, thus learn all that you can about it and then physically go out and do it?
Or do you just take notes, use a highlighter and think a lot?
I don’t want to be deceived.
-SB
Revive Humanity 