Practicing what we preach

I grew up in the church. It's the only thing I've ever known. Anybody else looking at my life would think that I'm a squeaky clean goody-two-shoes. I've never done drugs, I don't drink, I don't mess around with boys, I don't cuss, blah blah blah. But sometimes I wonder if that's a good thing or not. Of course I am grateful that I have never had to live with the pain of an addiction, or anything of those other things I mentioned. But I've also never known the exhilarating freedom of being rescued by God from the things that were holding me captive. I've never seen the "other side of the coin," which sometimes makes it difficult to remember how truly great my God is.

It's so easy for born-and-bred Christians to take Christ for granted. They bring their Bibles to church on Sunday mornings, they go to Wednesday night services, they know all the right answers in Sunday school...but their religion is worthless.  God wants us to practice what we preach.  He wants us to live out our faith.  Not just on Sunday mornings, and not just in what we say, but in what we say AND do, every day of the week.  James 1:22 sums it up nicely: "do not merely listen to the Word, and so deceive yourselves.  Do what it says."  I challenge you today: read God's Word.  Know what it says.  And do what it says.

James 1:19-26

 ¹⁹ My dear brothers and sisters, take note of this: Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry, ²⁰ because human anger does not produce the righteousness that God desires. ²¹ Therefore, get rid of all moral filth and the evil that is so prevalent and humbly accept the word planted in you, which can save you.  ²² Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says. ²³ Anyone who listens to the word but does not do what it says is like someone who looks at his face in a mirror ²⁴ and, after looking at himself, goes away and immediately forgets what he looks like. ²⁵ 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.
 ²⁶ Those who consider themselves religious and yet do not keep a tight rein on their tongues deceive themselves, and their religion is worthless. ²⁷ 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.