ACTING ON THE WORD BELIEVING demands action; creates action. Mental Assent admires, admits, but does not act. Acting on the Word is letting Christ act through you. Acting on the Word, then, gives God an opportunity; giving the Word its place is giving Christ His position of Lordship. The problem of believing is made simple when we know that it is acting on what God has spoken. Everyone therefore that heareth these words of mine, and doeth them, shall be likened unto a wise man, who built his house upon the rock; and the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house; and it fell not; for it was founded upon the rock (American Standard Version). Everyone who hears these teachings and acts upon them will be found to resemble a wise man who built his house upon the rock (Weymouth). (The rock is doing the Word. He that does not do the Word never builds upon a solid foundation.) And everyone that heareth these words and doeth them not, shall be likened unto a foolish man who built his house upon the sand. The hearer must become a doer or else the entire structure that he builds will be destroyed. Jesus illustrates that. He made us know what acting on the Word really means. The wise man is the doer of the Word. The other hears but does not act upon it. He is a Sense Knowledge hearer. He is a Mental Assenter. He may be a vague, indefinite hoper, but he is not a doer. He responds to reason instead of the Word. His spiritual life is built on sand. If he has faith in anything, it is in man, what man has done . . . science, works, organization, etc. You can tell whether a man is building on the sand or on the rock, by noticing whether he is practicing or not, whether he is acting on the Word. James 1:22-25. But be ye doers of the Word and not hearers only, deluding your own selves. For if anyone is a hearer of the Word and not a doer, he is like a natural man beholding his natural face in a mirror: for he beholdeth himself and goeth away, and straightaway forgetteth what manner of man he was . But he that looketh into the perfect law of liberty and so continueth, being not a hearer that forgetteth but a doer that remembereth, this man shall be blessed in his doing.” Advance Bible Course
Posted on: Fri, 07 Mar 2014 14:00:00 +0000