Tuesday, October 16, 2012

Hearing Doesn't Mean A Thing

"For it is not those who hear the law who are righteous in God’s sight, but it is those who obey the law who will be declared righteous." -Romans 2:13, New International Version

When you were a child, how often did your parents/guardians say "go clean your room?" Probably a lot, right? Every parent has to tell their kids to clean their room. I've yet to meet a kid that regularly just does his chores.

This is similar to how God's Word works at times. He tells us how to be holy in our lives, because we won't do it otherwise. Just like a kid with a messy room, we will walk around in our filth until our Father tells us not to.

There's a catch, though. How many times did your parents tell you to clean your room, only for you to ignore them? You see, it doesn't do a whole lot of good to just hear the direction from our Father; I can hear my boss at work give me things to do all day, but if the milk is never stocked, he may as well have never told me.

It's the same way with our righteousness. We can listen and hear God's righteousness all we want. We can attend Sunday morning, evening and Wednesday night church. We can attend conferences and simulcasts. We can bring a composition book to takes notes for all of those events in. Yet, if we never obey what God says, it doesn't matter; we're just wasting time and paper. We're killing off the rain forest, one wasted sermon note at a time. Simply hearing God doesn't mean a thing. He intends for us to obey.

Just like a good Father on Earth, there is punishment if we ignore His commands. At the end of this age, there will be a massive trial. Some people will be like OJ, getting away with murder. Literally. For eternity.

Some other people will have heard God's commands, including the one that says "follow me," and all they did was compose a clever tweet or Facebook status. A tweet with no action that acted as a smoke screen, blinding them to the impending doom.

So, let me ask: do you hear, or do you obey?

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