DOER.

As I sat in my office at the end of the day, I began reading in the book of James.  Chapter 1 verse 22 is a verse I've known for awhile and have even studied.  But it is like we do with many things in our lives.  We learn them, know them, can recite them, but then after awhile, we forget.  Going through college, I can remember time and time again, studying & memorizing material for classes and tests.  The important stuff, the stuff I knew I would use throughout my life involving music (which was my major), I retained.  However, much of the material in classes I "had" to take, that did not apply directly to my major, I learned/memorized for the test, then it was gone!  Things that I deemed "important" or "significant", I remember to this day.  Things I found "pointless" or "insignificant", I forgot almost immediately.

When I comes to the Word of God, how dare I deem any of it less significant than any other!

2 Timothy 3:16 says,

"All scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness..." (ESV)

Did you catch that?  ALL scripture is breathed out by God.  How many times do we treat the Bible as if it were a buffet?  All of it laid out before us to examine then choose what we want and pass over what we don't want.  To pick out what is desirable for us and leave that which disgusts us.  To cling to what comforts us, yet ignore that which convicts us.  

I do not want to treat the God-breathed scriptures the same way I did my college material.  As I study and learn the scriptures, I want it retain it all so much so that it defines the way I live.  Which brings me back to my reading today in the book of James.

"But be doers of the Word, and not hears only, deceiving yourselves."

James 1:22 (ESV)

It's interesting to me that the term "doers" is used rather than simply saying, "do what the Word says".  The implication here is that being identified as a doer means you're defined by what you are doing.  A teacher teaches.  A preacher preaches.  A writer writes.  A singer sings.  Therefore, being a doer of the Word, implies that obeying scriptures defines your lifestyle.  

What defines your life?  Many of us go to church and live the common "Christian" lifestyle, but throughout the week, don't touch our Bibles.  We leave them sitting in our spot on the church pew, or in the car, or on the table we set it on every Sunday when coming in from church.  

That same verse says that if your life is not being defined as being a doer of the Word, you're deceiving yourself.  By living the common "Christian" life, going to church, doing all the things your should be doing, and not doing the things you shouldn't be doing, you think you're in a right standing with God.  How can we have a relationship with God, if we're not spending time with Him?  We're deceiving ourselves!  

Just a few verses down, James defines the difference between a doer and being a hearer.  Hearers forget, while Doers act!  He compares a hearer to someone who looks intently at themselves in a mirror, then turns away and immediately forgets what they look like.  The picture here is that we use the Word of God as a mirror, reflecting our lives.  When we see things that shouldn't be there, or that need to change, we act.  A hearer simply reads these things, or hears a message preached, that should convict them and change the way they live, yet nothing changes.  John MacArthur says it like this in the study notes of his ESV Study Bible, 

"1:24 forgets what he was like.  Unless professing Christians act promptly after they hear the Word, they will forget the changes and improvements that their reflection showed them they need to make."

We're beginning a new year.  A new opportunity for you start over.  A new opportunity for me to start over. I want to be defined as a doer of the Word.  Too long, I've been a hearer.  I hear, I go, I know, I teach, I read, I lead.  I've deceived myself too long.  It's time to get right with God.  It's time to spend time with God. It's time to be a DOER.

Christmas is over. But...

Well, Christmas is over and I hope and pray that each of you who read this had a very Merry Christmas!  I hope this wasn't just any other Christmas.  I pray God revealed Himself to you in a way that you've never viewed Him before.  I know He did that in my life this Christmas season.  As we embark on a new year, I don't want these things that He taught me to escape my mind, or be put in a box like all the decorations and lights, not to be opened again until next Christmas.  I want to live my entire year this year with the truth that God is with us.  He is Emmanuel!

"Therefore the  Lord himself will give you a sign.  Behold, the  virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name Emmanuel." (Isaiah 7:14 ESV)

Emmanuel, God is with us.  What  a promise!  We know the story, we know this name, we know it's translation.  But do we really know what it means?  "God is with us!"   After 400 years of silence from God, the Israelite people knew the significance of this promise.  Generation after generation longed for a sign or a message from God and heard nothing.  They heard the stories of God from their ancestors and of His protection and provisions for their people.  But they heard nothing.  They longed and cried in their humanity for a sign that God still cared.  Then on that silent, holy night the silence was broken.  It was broken with a baby's cry.  God Himself was crying.  I find that significant.  He sympathized with the pain of humanity.  He cried with humanity as He came to save us.  God is still with us and He still sympathizes with us.  He walked this earth just as we walk the earth.  Now, He dwells in us and walks with us.  He is Emmanuel!

"And her husband Joseph, being a just man and unwilling  to put her to shame, resolved to divorce her quietly.  But as he considered these things, behold,  an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream, saying, "Joseph, son of David, do not fear to take Mary as your wife, for that which is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit." (Matthew 1:19, 20 ESV)

As a man, I understand Joseph's predicament and reaction in this situation.  What other choice did He have.  God had been silent for 400 years, and now his fiance is coming to him saying that God had spoken to her and conceived in her the child of God Himself.  However, as the Bible says, he was an upright man and decided to not publicly humiliate her (which would've been understood and acceptable to society), but rather to divorce her privately and quietly.  Yet after hearing from God himself, he knew what she had said was true and followed obediently what God had commanded him to do.  

In our lives, so many times we fall short of being the person God has designed and desires for us to be.  We sin.  We don't deserve God's grace.  Just as it would've been socially acceptable for Joseph to publicly punish Mary, so it would be just for God to punish us eternally because of our sin.  Yet in His grace and mercy, He chose to adopt us as His children.  To give us a new life.  We didn't (and don't) deserve it, but He still promises us His love.

And the angel said to them, "Fear not, for behold, I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all  the people. (Luke 2:10 ESV)

The first message the angels brought to the shepherds and to Mary (Luke 1:30), was to "Fear Not."  These two words carry a message that is often over looked when we look at the Christmas story.  The angles were bringing the greatest news the world had ever known, yet when presented with it, a sense of fear came over the recipients.  Which is why the angels said first, "Fear Not!"  

You know, when we encounter the holiness of God, we have much to fear.  Yet, Jesus' message by coming is "Fear Not."  The message of Christmas is "Fear Not!"  When we trust in Him and surrender our lives to Him, we no longer have to fear our unworthiness because imparts to us His worth!  We no longer have to fear our unrighteousness  because we live in His righteousness!  God punished His one and only Son as if He had lived our sinful life, so that now, He can reward us as if we had lived His Son's holy and sinless life!

It doesn't make sense.  But God, in His love and mercy, chooses to do so!  

Merry Christmas & Happy New Year!