“If anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man who sees his natural face in a mirror, and then goes away and straight away forgets what he looked like.” (James 1:24) The face in the mirror vanishes as soon as he turns away from it. “Be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves.” (James 1:22)
Hearing without doing can be deceptive because hearing alone does not change us. God did not create us to be like onions, with multiple layers but no central core. He created us to be like apples with multiple layers around a central core of being. “What we hear, we forget. What we read, we remember. But what we do, we know.
We inherit some character traits from our parents, and over time add to them traits of our own. Nature plus Nurture. These come from our environment, our choices, and our experiences. These are layers that surround the heart, which is the core of our being.
Those who hear God’s word and let it go “in one ear and out the other” find themselves unable to retain it. “Take heed therefore how you hear: for whosoever has, to him shall be given; and whosoever has not, from him shall be taken even that which he thinks he has.” (Luke 8:18)
Does the word you hear remain in your heart, or does it disappear? “But he who looks into [stoops down and looks carefully into] the perfect law of liberty and continues in it, and is not a forgetful hearer but a doer of the work: this one will be blessed in what he does.”
The NT Greek word for “blessed” means “doubly happy”! The “doer” of God’s word is a very happy person! The “perfect law of liberty” is the message that reflects Christ in us, the one who set us free. The “doer” is happy in what he does because he knows that he is in Christ and that Christ is in him. He retains a clear sense of identity by what he does.
Jesus closed his Sermon on the Mount with a parable of two builders. One built his house on rock and the other on sand. The rock in this case is not Jesus but his words. Not the word merely heard but the word actually done! (Matthew 7:24-29) Jesus said that the entire Sermon on the Mount, the essence of His kingdom teaching, works only when practiced. “If you know these things, happy are you if you do them.” (John 13:17)
The happiness that results from knowing and retaining your sense of identity comes from not just hearing but doing God’s word. Note the condition: “IF you know these things…IF you do them…” It’s the truth we know that makes us free, not the truth we hear but don’t use (John 8:31, 32). In the final analysis, we know the truth by doing the truth we know. We know by doing!