But be doers of the word, and not hearers only . . . v22
I had a classmate, back in Form Five in MBSKL, who would always display a sticker on his pencil-box stating, "A man of words but not of deeds, is like a garden full of weeds." He wasn't a Christian, and he didn't appear very religious. But he took this statement as a maxim in his life, seriously.
After I believed in the Lord Jesus, I was reminded of this classmate's maxim in life when I began to learn from James chapter 1 - to be a person of deeds.
. . . he who looks into the perfect law, the law of liberty, and perseveres, being no hearer that forgets but a doer that acts, he shall be blessed in his doing. v 25
Words that have been heard, received, agreed upon or affirmed with our lips need to be matched by our actions, our deeds and our walk in Christian living. Words which lie idle in our thinking, and not carried out in our doing can be likened to weeds in our garden of life.
This morning I received an email from an old Christian teacher, Shirley Ng, who's visiting her relatives in Melbourne, telling me that she enjoys helping her sister to weed their garden. And each time she does the weeding, she's reminded likewise to remove "weeds" from her own life, a task which, she says, is "backbreaking". Some of those things which Shirley has to constantly weed out are bad habits in life.
Today, I'd also like to liken my life to a garden that requires constant weeding. A tiring and unpleasant task indeed, but if neglected, Christian life will be full of talk and little action. It will become a garden full of weeds.
Let us not be hearers who forget, but instead be doers who act.
No comments:
Post a Comment