As Christians, we are taught the importance of listening to and learning the Word of God.
Psalm 119 speaks of the joy of writing God’s laws in our hearts:
I seek you with all my heart;
do not let me stray from your commands.
I have hidden your word in my heart
that I might not sin against you.
Praise be to you, O Lord; teach me your decrees.
With my lips I recount all the laws that come from your mouth.
I rejoice in following your statutes
as one rejoices in great riches.
But Jesus showed us that doing the Word of God is just as important. He took time from teaching his disciples and preaching to the crowds to heal the sick, cleanse lepers, raise the dead, and feed the hungry.
The Book of James sums it up this way:
Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says. Anyone who listens to the word but does not do what it says is like someone who looks at his face in a mirror and, after looking at himself, goes away and immediately forgets what he looks like. But whoever looks intently into the perfect law that gives freedom, and continues in it—not forgetting what they have heard, but doing it—they will be blessed in what they do.
God counts on us to do His Word. To be the hands that help, the ears that listen, the shoulders that share burdens. To help those who can’t help themselves. To love one another.
James ends his writing with this sentence:
Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.
We need to listen to God’s Word. We need to learn God’s Word. But we also need to do God’s Word.
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