Apply The Word
The intention of this series of blogs called, Truth: Fluid or Final, has been to give a greater appreciation and confidence in God's Word. Here's the thing, if you have confidence in something, then you're likely willing to utilize its value for yourself. It's no different for the scriptures. If you have confidence in the inspiration, canonization, and illumination of the Bible, the logical outcome is the application of its truths. God intended the final truth of his Word to be applied to your daily life. If you understand and believe how the Bible came from God, how it was written down by God-inspired men, assembled into 66 books so that the common person can read it, and how the Holy Spirit instructs your heart with its truth, but do not allow it to guide your actions, then God's Word becomes irrelevant and worthless for you. The Apostle John recorded this in John 8:31-32…
31 Jesus said to the people who believed in him, "You are truly my disciples if you remain faithful to my teachings. 32 And you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free."
God gave the world his truth. You'll be set free from the destruction of sin and evil and set on a path of living for Jesus only if you're knowledgeable of and faithful to the teachings of God's Word.
GOD'S TRUTH MAKES A DAILY DIFFERENCE God's Word informs you of the mind and heart of God. However, if his Word isn't applied to the day to day circumstances you face, his revelation will have done nothing to transform you. It's important that you understand how God's Word applies to life, and that's what James 1:22–25 says…
22 But don't just listen to God's word. You must do what it says. Otherwise, you are only fooling yourselves. 23 For if you listen to the word and don't obey, it is like glancing at your face in a mirror. 24 You see yourself, walk away, and forget what you look like. 25 But if you look carefully into the perfect law that sets you free, and if you do what it says and don't forget what you heard, then God will bless you for doing it.
If you go to the store today and purchase a toy or some food or hardware, you're probably going to find a warning or caution note on the side of the package. Those caution labels can be useful, but sometimes, if you look hard enough, you can find some warning labels that are just crazy. For example, on the side of a baby stroller box, there's this warning: "Remove child before folding." On a cardboard sunshield that you put in your windshield to protect the car from the sun, there was this warning: "Don't drive with sunshield in place." On a toilet bowl cleaning brush: "Not for oral use." On the package of a rain gauge: "Suitable for outdoor use." On a 500-piece puzzle: "Some assembly required." And I love this one from the manual of a chainsaw: "Do not attempt to stop the blade with your hand."
Now, the reason these labels exist is that someone opened a package and began to use the product in a way it wasn't intended. It likely led to some sort of catastrophic problem, and probably a lawsuit along the way. So, the manufacturers decided they needed to clarify with the warning label. Well, in the scripture above, James is writing a warning label. He's writing to inform Christ-followers how the Word of God is intended to be used. And it seems to me that he knows enough about human nature to realize that there's a great tendency for you and me to mishandle or not handle the Word of God.
And if we mishandle or misuse or not use the Word of God, it leads to some potentially dangerous consequences. James highlights two of those consequences in this passage:
1. You are just spiritually fooling yourself 2. You become forgetful of what real truth is
If James were writing to us today, he would probably broaden his command and say…
"Do not merely be listeners of a sermon. Do not just read the Word in a devotional. Do not merely be just students of the Word. Do not merely listen to podcasts of the Word or merely download the Word on a Bible App, or read a tweet of the Word or an Instagram graphic of the Word, or simply look at the Word online."
It's not that James was against listening and reading and studying and discussing and memorizing and meditating and podcasting and tweeting because, in order for the Bible to get into us, we must get into the Bible. He was all about communicating the Word of God. But James' point is that merely listening or hearing or receiving the Word of God into your life is not enough. God has more in mind for his Truth. In fact, it can be dangerous to your spiritual life. Here's the antidote: You must do what it says.
The problem is that when you simply listen to the Word and it and stops right there, perhaps the only gain is knowledge. Unless you live out the truth of God's instruction, you cheat yourself. Yes, the Word of God can warm your heart without ever moving your soul. The Word of God can inform your mind without transforming your life. The Word of God can educate the sinner without eradicating sin from your life. It has the potential to make a person theologically smart, biblically informed, and apologetically keen, and yet while the person continues to grow in knowledge, he or she can be left immature, unmoved, and unchanged. That leads to a false sense of being more spiritually awakened than what's actual—a false sense that you're walking closely to God when you actually are not.
TRANSFORMED BY TRUTH The apostle Peter warns followers of Jesus to relate to people in ways that show we have been transformed by knowledge and application of God's truth. Peter writes in 1 Peter 3:15-16a…
15 Instead, you must worship Christ as Lord of your life. And if someone asks about your hope as a believer, always be ready to explain it. 16 But do this in a gentle and respectful way.
You see, knowledge by itself—receiving information into your life—can make you smarter and sharper and quicker on your feet and can give you the right words to say, and yet it can also give an inflated picture of your spiritual maturity. A person can have a big head and a strong mind and have many of the answers from Scripture, yet inside there is nothing but puffed up air. There's no substance, no maturity, no reality of the living Jesus living within. Simply reading scripture, or listening to a great sermon, or memorizing verses can be self-deceiving; it can give you the feeling that you're growing when in fact you're not developing spiritual maturity at all.
Peter says, "Instead you must worship Christ as Lord of your life." The only way that Jesus becomes Lord of your life is if you know him personally as Savior and King. And if Jesus is King of your life, you are subservient to his truth in both word and deed. You listen to his truth and then you do it. You obey it. You apply it to life. You live it each day. The fact is, listening by itself does not lead to life change. Listening alone does not necessarily lead to transformation.
The next time you use Google Map or something like it, remember that it can tell you how to get where you want to go, but you still need to drive! It's not going to take you to your destination. In the same way, the Bible is a powerful source of absolute truth and a road map for life, but it's not magical. Having head knowledge about the words on the page doesn't bring about life change. Your life will change only when you read and understand God's roadmap and then follow the directions to get you from here to there.
ONE MORE THING Back in James 1:23-24, James uses the illustration of a fellow who goes and looks in the mirror…
23 For if you listen to the word and don't obey, it is like glancing at your face in a mirror. 24 You see yourself, walk away, and forget what you look like.
Mirrors were designed to reveal your current physical status—that includes your imperfections. They were designed to reveal what needs to be changed on an individual. But the mirror doesn't have the power to change the looker, right? The mirror informs the looker and then the looker has the option to go and deal with the change—to wash their face or comb their hair—to take care of something that's wrong with their looks. You could look in the mirror ten times or a hundred mirrors but if you don't comb your hair, nothing changes. You must do something with what you see if a change is going to happen.
James has a caution for us. He says, "If you linger in the Word of God, like a mirror it will expose and reveal what is true and not true in your life. It will show you who you really are and who you're really not. In the moment you see the truth of God's Word, you have a choice: either reject it or respond to it, apply the Word of God to your life—and not tomorrow but today." And if you do—in the words of James, you will be blessed. You will find gladness in the life that God has planned for you.
NEXT STEP 1. My prayer for you today is that you will not merely be a hearer, a listener, a reader of God's Word, but a doer. Receive all that God has prepared for you by doing his truth. Memorize this…
Hebrew 4:12 For the word of God is alive and powerful. It is sharper than the sharpest two-edged sword, cutting between soul and spirit, between joint and marrow. It exposes our innermost thoughts and desires.
