On the Road to Jerusalem: Hearing & Doing

“But He said, ‘Blessed rather are those who hear the word of God and keep it!’" 

—Luke 11:28

While on the road to Jerusalem, Jesus became somewhat of a celebrity. Once, while He was teaching, a woman from the crowd raised her voice and exclaimed, “Blessed is the womb that bore You, and the breasts at which You nursed!” Unknown to her, she was fulfilling Mary’s words of praise soon after she found out she was pregnant with child: “For behold, from now on all generations will call me blessed”—Luke 1:48. But while Mary was blessed, Jesus focused more on the blessing of those who hear the Word of God and keep it.

There are many who hear the Word of God and do nothing about it, like a child hearing instruction from a parent not to touch the stove, only to touch it minutes later. The parent gives instruction because he or she loves the child and doesn’t wish them harm, but the foolish child rejects such counsel, believing that he or she knows better.

James wrote about hearing and doing the Word of God:

“But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves. For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man who looks intently at his natural face in a mirror. For he looks at himself and goes away and at once forgets what he was like. But the one who looks into the perfect law, the law of liberty, and perseveres, being no hearer who forgets but a doer who acts, he will be blessed in his doing”—James 1:22-25.

It is not simply by our hearing the Word of God that we are blessed, but by doing it. We must follow the example of Ezra who, “set his heart to study the Law of the LORD, and to do it and to teach his statutes and rules in Israel”—Ezra 7:10. Ezra was one who not only sought to study the Word but to do what it says.

Lent is a time of introspection as we hold up the Word of God as a mirror to our soul, asking God to “Search me, O God, and know my heart! Try me and know my thoughts! And see if there be any grievous way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting!”—Psalm 139:23-24.

Are you hearing and doing what the word of God says? Are you reading, meditating on, and studying the word in order to “present yourself to God as one approved, a worker who has no need to be ashamed, rightly handling the word of truth”—2 Timothy 2:15?

Take time to read and meditate on the Word today, asking God to reveal Himself to you. And then whatever He tells you to do, do it, for the honor and praise of His great and glorious name. Amen.