We all want God to bless our lives. We want stability, and a solid foundation.
But if we want God to bless our lives, if we want to have a solid, firm foundation, we have to really get into God's Word. There's no other way.
Let's look at the four ways James 1:22-25 says we should interact with the Bible in order to have
a life God blesses.
But whoever looks into the perfect law of
liberty, and continues in it, he being not a
forgetful hearer, but a doer of the work,
this man shall be blessed in his deed.
(James 1:25)
So what does this tells us we need to do? Remember these four "R's":
1) Read your Bible. “Whoever looks intently …”
2) Review the Bible. “… and continues in it …”
3) Remember the Bible. “… not forgetting what they have heard …”
4) Respond to the Bible. “ … but doing it …”
We have to learn to do all four of these things. One or two of them isn't going to do us much good if we never learn to apply God's Word to our lives.
If we read, study, and memorize God’s Word, but never apply the Bible to our lives, we’ve missed the whole point. James 1:22 warns us not to deceive ourselves
when we read God’s Word. Instead, we’re to turn what God teaches us into actions.
If we do these four things, God's Word changes us; it renews our minds and transforms us. (see Romans 12:2)
You see, we only believe the part of the Bible we actually do. That's what James meant when he said:
For if any be a hearer of the word, and not a doer,
he is like unto a man beholding his natural face in
a mirror: For he beholds himself, and goes his way,
and immediately forgets what manner of man he was.
(James 1:23-24)
You only believe the part of the Bible you actually do. God wants us to be doers of the Word, not just hearers. Too many times we hear good Bible teaching, but
we don’t do anything about what we’re learning. We have to put what we learn into action. Jesus said this:
“Everyone who hears these words of mine and
puts them into practice is like a wise man who
built his house on the rock." (Matthew 7:24)
We all want to be wise, don't we? Then we have to put the Bible into practice.
Applying the Bible to our lives will give us stability during the storms of life. We don’t know what storms may come into our lives in the next year or two.
But I do know this: You’ll crumble when tough times come if you’re building your life on anything
other than God’s Word. Contemporary culture changes like shifting sands.
Instead, you must build your life upon the unchanging Word of God. No storm can overcome that rock.
(From a message by Rick Warren)
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