“For if anyone is a hearer of he word and not a doer, he is like a man who looks at his natural face in a mirror; for once he has looked at himself and gone away, he has immediately forgotten what kind of person he was” (James 1:23-24).
I asked my friend Freddie Arnold what to do about the mildew on my concrete.
Our water heater had busted and water leaked everywhere in the garage. After we mopped it up and replaced the heater, I noticed that the water had soaked into some things stored in the cluttered garage and we had a mildew problem. Freddie would know what to do.
In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina’s flooding of metro New Orleans, the procedure for restoring many of the damaged homes was to throw away all the furnishings, mud out the floors, then strip out the sheetrock down to the studs. At that point, you treated everything for mildew. Only after you were certain there was no mildew would you start to rebuild. Because Freddie Arnold was knowledgeable about these things, in his role as Disaster Relief foreman and NOBA assistant DOM, he led in the salvaging of hundreds of homes.
I called Freddie at the East Baton Rouge Baptist Association where he’s working these days in semi-retirement. (A joke. Freddie has never done half a job in his life. Pay him for half a day’s work and you will get far more than you expected.) He told me what to buy to treat the mildew and I wrote it down.
And promptly forgot what he had said.
To this day, some months later I’m embarrassed to say, I still have not bought that treatment and gone through the steps. And I cannot recall what the product is Freddie told me to buy. Once in a while I’ll find that notebook and refresh my memory, so that theoretically at least, while I’m out today, I can run by the Ace Hardware place and purchase it.
I still don’t know what it is. The name does not remain. It simply flies away.
“Shock Wave.” Cut it 1 to 4. Let it “set” on the concrete for an hour, then hose it down. (I had to walk out to the car and find the notebook where I’d recorded Freddie’s words.)
The only way I’m going to remember this product is by purchasing it and applying it as Freddie said. Otherwise, it’s just a theoretical concept to me. And I don’t do theory.
I’m this way about medical stuff.
My wife knows all about medicines, dosages, milligrams and the interaction of remedies upon each other. Much of that is due, no doubt, to the fact that she has dealt with a number of medical issues over her life and I hardly at all.
Later this morning, I’m seeing our family physician for a checkup. No symptoms of anything, just routine. She will ask what meds I am taking regularly. So, before leaving the house I will pull them out of the basket in my bathroom and make a list. What strength is the statin drug I take? I have no idea. And even when I look it up (20 mg), I’ll forget it before the day is out.
I don’t know why this is. Some things my mind does not retain.
In Holy Scripture, James said people who read or listen to God’s Word–without books of their own, First Century believers did far more listening than reading–but with no intention of putting it into practice should not be surprised when the lesson does not stay with them.
Until they practice the concept, it’s just that, a concept. Theory.
These days, I am witnessing to a fellow who retains nothing I share with him. I will write out a scripture so he will have it before him to think about. He posts it on the wall, but it may as well be in Sanskrit. We talk, he listens politely and responds slightly, and I pray with him and later for him. But I might as well be trying to raise a garden in the street behind my house. It’s not working.
Only when my friend begins to act on what he has heard will it start to make sense to him.
There’s a world of application here.
Pastors know that unless they put into practice the concepts they find in Scripture and preach to their congregation, they will quickly forget them. A year later, they will come across that text in the Word and wonder what there was about it which interested them before, because it’s not there now.
The texts we love are the ones we obey. The ones we retain and “hide in our hearts” (Psalm 119:11) are those we not only appreciate and memorize but live out.
Over and over, Scripture emphasizes the “doing” of the Word. Here are a few instances….
“Prove yourselves doers of the word, and not merely hearers who delude themselves” (James 1:22). I’m wondering who remembers the children’s chorus we use to sing about this very verse. Called “Be Ye Doers of the Word,” it begins, “From James 1:22 comes a call for juniors too; be ye doers of the word….”
“Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father who is in heaven” (Matthew 7:21).
“Therefore, everyone who hears these words of Mine and does them, may be compared to a wise man who built his house upon a rock….” (Matthew 7:24) And do you recall the chorus that went with that? Two verses later, we read, “And everyone who hears these words of Mine and does not do them, will be like a foolish man who built his house upon the sand.”
“Why do you call me ‘Lord, Lord,’ and do not do what I say?” (Luke 6:46)
“If you know these things, blessed are you if you do them” (John 13:17).
“My little children, let us not love in words or tongue (only), but in deed and in truth” (I John 3:18).
That’s enough to make the point.
Over and over in the Upper Room Discourse (John 13-16), our Lord emphasized to the disciples that the person who loves Him keeps His commands. And no one not keeping His teaching can rightfully claim to love Him. (See John 14:15,21,23,24 and 15:10,14.)
Do not ask me about medicines, because I rarely take them and know almost nothing about them.
Do not ask me about mildew and how to stop it (although, as soon as I buy–whatever the name of that product is–and use it, I plan to become an expert on the subject).
Ask me about the Lord Jesus and His Word. I don’t know all there is to know, and never expect to. But I know a lot. Because obeying the Lord Jesus is everything to me.
“For to this end I wrote that I might put you to the test, whether you are obedient in all things” (2 Corinthians 2:9).