Hearing is Not Enough

But be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves. 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:  For he beholdeth himself, and goeth his way, and straightway forgetteth what manner of man he was. (James 1:22-24)

James did not waste words, and he did not soften his message in his letter. In the first chapter of his letter, he wrote something that should make every believer stop and pay attention. He said that if you hear the Word but don’t do it, you deceive yourself, not God or anyone else. Hearing is where faith starts but doing produces results.

There are five elements of faith that work in a specific sequence. You hear the Word first, and hearing is the most important because nothing can happen without it. Hearing leads to receiving, receiving leads to believing, believing leads to speaking, and speaking leads to acting.

Every step matters. The person who hears and stops there has taken the most critical step and then refused to move. They have the foundation for faith but have decided not to build on it. James gave us a sharp illustration. The person who hears but does not do is like someone who looks in a mirror, sees their face clearly, then walks away and immediately forgets what they look like. Think about how odd that is. You look at yourself and see exactly what is there, but if you walk away without doing anything with what you saw, the information is completely useless.

The Word is like that mirror. It shows you who you are, what you have in Christ, what you are up against, and what God has promised. But if you walk away without making any adjustments, nothing changes. Some believers have been in church for years and can quote the Bible chapter and verse. They are fluent in the vocabulary of faith. But the Word has not produced much in their lives because they stopped at hearing. God is not moved by how much Bible you know. He is moved by faith expressed in action. Hearing is the door. Doing is walking through it.

Practical Application

Think about something you heard from the Word recently, something the Holy Spirit brought to your attention that you received but have not yet acted on. Identify that one thing and take a step of action on it today. That step is where the faith starts working.

Ezekiel 33:32; John 13:17