Living Out God’s Word

“Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says.” - James 1:22

Yesterday, we began talking about what it takes to have a holy new year. If you want this new year to be one that strengthens and grows your faith, then there are three specific things you need to do. The first is to spend time in God’s Word every day. We talked about that in more depth yesterday, so if you missed that devotion, I would encourage you to go back and read it. But for today, let’s discuss two more things you need to do to have a holy new year.

The second thing you need to do is to learn from the Bible continuously. When you quit learning, you quit living. There are always new truths to learn, and you will never know it all. There are no greater life lessons to be learned anywhere than from God’s Word. One of the reasons why you need to continuously learn from God’s Word is because it is all truth, and it is always true.

God’s lessons about how to have a strong marriage, how to be a good husband and a good wife, how to be a wise parent and raise wise children, how to manage money wisely and well, how to find the right kind of friend and be the right kind of friend, how to handle your enemies, and how to deal with conflict still works! They worked 2000 years ago, and they will work 2000 years from now. There is always something we can be learning from God’s Word.

Finally, the third thing you need to do to have a holy new year is to live out the Bible practically. You can love the Bible, you can look at the Bible, you can listen to the Bible, and you can learn from the Bible, but it will not change your life until you live out the Bible. James, the brother of Jesus, makes this clear to us when he says, “Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says,” (James 1:22).

Far too often we want to claim the promises of the Bible. We want to enjoy the blessings of the Bible. We want to get peace from the Bible, but we don’t want to obey the commandments of the Bible. It is not enough to just listen to the Bible. The Latin word for “listen” gives us our English word “audit.” When you “audit” a class, you get the information from the class, but if you don’t do the homework and you don’t do anything with what you have learned, you don’t get any credit for the class either.

The same thing is true spiritually. It is one thing to look to the Bible and learn from the Bible, but you don’t get credit for that. You’ve got to put it into practice. You have got to live it out. You have got to obey it before it really becomes the power in your life that it should and gives you the power to live the life God intended for you to live.

I pray that you will implement these three things we’ve learned and that you will have a happy and holy new year!

Dear Lord, not only do I want to make it a habit of reading your word, but I want to learn from your Word and live out what it says. I don’t want to be someone who just takes in information but doesn’t let it soak in and never applies it. Help me to live out what you teach me. In Jesus’ name, amen.