Doing the Word, Part 2

Drawing on James 1:22-25, last week’s column reminded us to approach the word expecting to change. But it can feel depressing and burdensome to look at our problems all the time and add stuff to our spiritual “to do” list! Just in case that’s how you feel, notice how James describes the Bible in verse 25: “the perfect law, the law of liberty.” Applying the Bible, rather than being restrictive and heavy, is actually the route to freedom and delight. When we ignore what the Bible shows us about ourselves, we stay restricted and enslaved. But when we actively apply it, it liberates us! As Jesus put it in John 8:32: “You will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”

Similarly, James writes in verse 21: “receive with meekness the implanted word, which is able to save your souls.” Here is the ultimate freedom offered to us in the word: the salvation of our soul! Apparently, we ignore the word to our eternal and most severe peril. In other words, if we form the habit of hearing the word without applying it, we just might not “save our soul”—we might prove that our Christianity was fake and end up missing heaven altogether.

But we don’t just need to fear the warning. We can also desire the blessing: “The one who looks into the perfect law, the law of liberty, and perseveres, being no hearer who forgets but a doer who acts, he will be blessed in his doing.” So why should we do the word? Because God promises special blessing upon those who intentionally change when they hear the word.