If…

James 1:22-24 says, “Don’t just listen to the word of Truth and not respond to it, for that is the essence of self-deception. So always let His word become like poetry written and fulfilled by your life! If you listen to the word and don’t live out the message you hear, you become like the person who looks in the mirror of the word to discover the reflection of his face in the beginning. You perceive how God sees you in the mirror of the word, but then you go out and forget your divine origin.”

Last week we started talking about how our amen is our agreement in faith and how we need to put our faith into action in order to receive the promises of God. Our verse today tells us that we need to be doers of the Word. This is a very important element of receiving the promises of God because like we said last week, the promises of God are not automatic. In fact, most of the promises of God are conditional. They take the form, “If you… then I…”. 

We usually have to make the first move. God has already done all He needed to do and accomplish in Jesus. Our promises in Him have already found their fulfilment. However, and in order for us to experience them in our lives, we need to come into agreement and use our faith to receive them. 

Deuteronomy 28:1-2 says, “If you fully obey the Lord your God and carefully keep all his commands that I am giving you today, the Lord your God will set you high above all the nations of the world. You will experience all these blessings if you obey the Lord your God…”

I don’t know if you noticed but obedience to God is listed twice in that verse. Obedience to the Word of God is necessary if we want to unlock the blessings that God has for us. Rebellion and disobedience do not unlock the blessings and promises of God, instead they unlock curses if you read on in Deuteronomy 28:15 onwards.

So it is when we receive the Word of God by faith and do what it tells us to do that we receive the promises of God. When we say “Amen” to the Word of God its not just a mental acknowledgement of the Word, we are coming into agreement with the Word and agreeing to be bound by it. Because essentially, we are saying whatever has been said, let it be so- let it be established in me. So we have a responsibility to then take that Word as a mirror that we look at and align our lives with. Because when we align our lives with the Word of God, it makes way for the promises of God to then be released into our lives. 

In Deuteronomy 28, for us to be able to receive the blessings of God, we first have to be willing to fully obey God and after we have done that we still need to make sure we obey God, lol. A big part of receiving the promises of God, is compliance with the pre-conditions. That is, we make sure we do what the Word says. If you do your part, God is always faithful to do His part. In fact, His part is already complete in Jesus, He is just waiting for us to meet Him with our obedience.

Love and blessings

Melissa Tsingano