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James 1:22
22 But [de] be ye [ginomai] doers [poietes] of the word [logos], and [kai] not [me] hearers [akroates] only [monon], deceiving [paralogizomai] your own selves [heautou]. KJV-Interlinear
22 But prove yourselves doers of the word, and not merely hearers who delude themselves. NASB
All too often, believers in Christ fall into a delusional state of carnal security. They hear the gospel, or they hear the doctrinal instruction and somehow figure that it does not apply to them.
A person hears the gospel and believes in Christ, then presumes that, that is all there is to their spiritual commitment. After all, once saved there is nothing further to do but wait for your call home to heaven.
But then, life did not end for most of us once we believed in Christ. The days, and weeks, and years continued on and on, and we often wondered if there wasn't something more, perhaps something left out, or perhaps God went on a vacation.
Life was supposed to be rosy once saved, but we seem to have nothing but trouble.
Once saved we were exposed to the many rituals and beliefs, that are prevalent in the many church groups. So which one was right and which were wrong? We go to church faithfully, maybe even attend a mid-week prayer meeting.
We go to clubs or organizations that form in order to promote some type of Bible principle. Groups like the fathers group, or the parents group, or the promises group, or something similar, where a concept of doctrine (which most of the time is merely a gimmick), is emphasized in order to get memberships.
Or, we go to church once a month, or only on holidays, or we simply get disillusioned with all of this Bible stuff and turn ourselves off to it all. After all, most everyone we see, who promotes themselves as Christian, or born-again believers, are in reality hypocrites or phony's or they just seem weird. After all, none of them are successful billionaires, or presidents, or kings, or celebrities. But then, what was Jesus' life like?
And our delusional trap is in the evaluation of people, rather than of God and doctrine.
People did not author the Bible, God did. People are not the source of the spiritual life, God is. So evaluation needs to be focused on the source and principles of doctrine, not on people and the hundreds of weird interpretations or applications that they come up with.
Then the idea that all you have to do is be sincere, be nice, give the church (occasionally), begin to build up a set of standards for how we are to behave, or rather how we want to behave. And voila, the carnal trap opens its jaws and snatches us up, which halts all spiritual growth and benefit.
Hearer, means to listen only. A child can listen, 'Clean up your room. Wash your hands.' They know and understand, but they don't seem to comply with the instruction.
Doer, here means to become productive in your spiritual life, to perform. And performance means that you apply the principles of doctrine to your daily life.
This does not mean that you go out to 'do' something. Doing, means to be obedient to the principles and mandates issued in the scriptures.
We have already put together a list called the Spiritual Checklist in the Special Studies section, which we studied in Joel. You might want to review it sometime. Here you will find the do's of the spiritual life.
And, just as there will always be those who listen but won't follow through, there will also be those who will go out and 'do' things, but still are not in compliance with the spiritual life. So you can get trapped both ways.
Doing things, is not the spiritual life. This is the do-gooder trap. They are trying to buy their way into spiritual acceptance.
The easiest way to recognize if a thing done, is a part of the spiritual life, is to ask yourself if an unbeliever can do the same thing. If so, then it likely is just busy work of the spiritually dysfunctional person.
Unbelievers can go knocking on doors. Unbelievers can give to charity. Unbelievers can crusade for political agendas, and so forth.
Your primary 'doing' is first, confession in order to get into fellowship. An unbeliever cannot confess and get Gods forgiveness. An unbeliever cannot get into fellowship.
Then the believers' next series of do's, is to keep monitoring his or her spiritual life in order to confess when necessary and keep themselves in fellowship. This is the soldiers guard duty, to watch out for the enemy of sin in ones life. To keep himself resident in the Fortress of God for spiritual security. To remain in the presence (spiritually) of God, for personal relations to function.
Then, there is the studying (while in fellowship), the learning (while in fellowship), the applying (while in fellowship), the gaining of understanding (while in fellowship), the development of wisdom (while in fellowship), etc., etc., etc.
Then we live our life, in responsibility, recognizing our obligations to giving, to interacting with people, to dealing with disasters. All the while understanding that everything that we have comes from God, and more importantly, that Jesus Christ controls history.
The bulk of your 'doing,' occurs within your spiritual growth function, and then your production comes from your application of common sense principles to your daily life.
Your productive life results from your spiritual growth. Spiritual growth does not result from activities performed outside of your fellowship sphere.
