James 1:22
What is a doer of the word? Have you ever thought about it?
It is evident in writing but more complicated in reality. What it’s talking about are those times when we read or hear about things that are good for us, and we are bubbling over with the thought of success, and we know this is what we have been waiting for, and commence immediately, excited.
BUT, two weeks later we are back to our old selves.
Why? It doesn’t make sense. We came alive when we read it, so what happened!
What we found was that the time and effort required for success is more than we are prepared to give.
This is where we have the situations of a smoker who keeps smoking, a drinker who keeps drinking, a walker who keeps refraining from walking, etc. They never get to the prize or experience the joy of that success.
For that success to be real, it has to be ‘done’. Our problem is we want the progress without that four-letter word, ‘work’, or that ten-letter word, ‘commitment’.😊
What that means is, that subconsciously we think we are ok like we are!
In many walks of life, we can go through getting away with that, but God has expectations. He wants a commitment for change because we are moving all of our thoughts and intents of the heart from one kingdom to an entirely different type of kingdom: and he has given us the Holy Spirit to make those necessary changes.
God remains unimpressed when he sees the Holy Spirit within trying to work, but we stay lazy or resistant, actually resisting the Holy Spirit.
Boiled down, that means we are subconsciously rejecting God’s favour along with those things he works so hard to give us.
That is why in the following verses after James 1:22 he states that we are like a person who looks at themselves in this new mirror and sees the new person we can become, but then walk away and drop the thought off — it vanishes.
All dreams with no commitment remains dreams.
Thus, he wrote, “But whoso looketh into the perfect law of liberty, and continueth therein, he being not a forgetful hearer, but a doer of the work, this man shall be blessed in his deed“ (in his acts or practices)
When we continue doing good things, we reap a reward. When we apply ourselves to God's callings, there is freedom from both Satan and the world.