| Flow Of God |
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JAMES 1:22-24
(KJV)
22 But be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves.
23 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 glass:
24 For he beholdeth himself, and goeth his way, and straightway forgetteth what manner of man he was.
(Cressman)
but obey God's word. Do not just listen to it. If you just listen to it, you fool yourselves.
Anyone who just listens to the word, and does not obey it, is like a man who looks at his face in a looking glass.
He looks at himself and goes away, and right away he forgets what he looked like.
(Wade)
Show yourselves doers of what is communicated by it and not merely hearers, duping yourselves.
Because, if anyone is merely a hearer of what is communicated, and not a doer, he is like a man viewing in a mirror the face with which he was born; who, just for a moment, has caught a view of his features, and the next instant has departed, and at once his features have passed his mind
(The Message)
Don't fool yourself into thinking that you are a listener when you are anything but, letting the Word go in one ear and out the other. Act on what you hear! Those who hear and don't act are like those who glance in the mirror, walk away, and two minutes later have no idea who they are, what they look like
(WYMTH)
But prove yourselves obedient to the message, and do not be mere hearers of it, imposing a delusion upon yourselves. For if any one listens but does not obey, he is like a man who carefully looks at his own face in a mirror. Although he has looked carefully at himself, he goes away, and has immediately forgotten the sort of man he is
(Phillips)
Don't, I beg you, only hear the message, but put it into practice; otherwise you are merely deluding yourselves. The man who simply hears and does nothing about it is like a man catching the reflection of his own face in a mirror. He sees himself, it is true, but he goes on with whatever he was doing without the slightest recollection of what sort of person he saw in the mirror
O.K. now he says "be doers of the word and not hearers only." You see, after it has been communicated to your heart by the breath of the Father, then you are to act, to do. Exactly like when we first got saved, we obeyed the word which we heard with our heart and that brought us the seed of salvation. Now we are to continue to do the same. Only this time it is pointed out that we are the reflection of the living Word, and if we hear a Word from God how can we not do it? By walking upstream, against the wind, against the grain, that's how. We have forgotten what He just told us, or who it is that spoke to us. Not good. You see, I have always asked myself one question. Is it easier to do what I believe in my heart to be true, or, to do what I know in my head to be right? Doing what you believe to be true from your heart is a lot easier than doing what you know is right in your head. If I get a Word from God and act on it in confession, then He provides the power with it to bring the change. The same holds true with acting on the Word. But if I try to act on the Word, because I know what it says, and have been told that it is right to do; there is no power in that action. The power of the Word in my life comes through the application of my heart in believing, not my head in mental assent! 
Listen, if I get a Word from God telling me to go talk to someone about salvation, and I obey, then that person will get saved, re-commit, get baptized in the Holy Spirit, or God will speak a particular Word through me, to that person. It's like Jesus, in the Book of John Chapter 4. The woman at the well, He had a direct Word for her, didn't He? Now if I go try to do the same thing because I know I should or I just think it's the right thing to do, than it lacks the power of God, in its action and reaction. God doesn't work from our heads, just because we have the Word there. God works through us, when we believe that He is and we know and believe God is talking to our hearts. That is the power of the truth in conviction that is true Gospel power. God working through us because we believe. Like I said above, the power of conviction in your heart life brings the power of God in your soul life, and that is how your mind is renewed. The real power of the Gospel of Jesus Christ comes when it is absorbed and assimilated through the spirit into the heart and believed, then flowing through the heart to its necessary target in the soul and then totally reconstructing that particular part of the mind or emotions. |