Obedience
The Bible says: “Wherefore, my beloved brethren, let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak,
slow to wrath: For the wrath of man worketh not the righteousness of God. Wherefore lay apart all filthiness and superfluity
of naughtiness, and receive with meekness the engrafted word, which is able to save your souls. But be ye doers of the word,
and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves. For if any be a hearer of the word, and not a doer, he is like unto a man
beholding his natural face in a glass: For he beholdeth himself, and goeth his way, and straightway forgetteth what manner
of man he was. But whoso looketh into the perfect law of liberty, and continueth therein, he being not a forgetful
hearer, but a doer of the work, this man shall be blessed in his deed. If any man among you seem to be religious, and bridleth
not his tongue, but deceiveth his own heart, this man's religion is vain. Pure religion and undefiled before God
and the Father is this, To visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from
the world.” James 1:19-27 (KJV)
When Edward VI, the king of England in the 16th century, attended
a worship service, he stood while the Word of God was read. He took notes during this time and later studied them with great
care. Through the week he earnestly tried to apply them to his life.
That’s
the kind of serious-minded response to truth the apostle James calls for. A single revealed fact cherished in the heart and
acted upon is more vital to our growth than a head filled with lofty ideas about God.
Daily Chronological Bible Reading: Numbers 33-34