Devotional: Come, Hear, Act

“Why do you call Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ and do not do what I say? Everyone who comes to Me and hears My words and acts on them, I will show you whom he is like: he is like a man building a house, who dug deep and laid a foundation on the rock; and when a flood occurred, the torrent burst against that house and could not shake it, because it had been well built. Luke 6:46-48

When I read the Bible, I like to pick out lists of key words.  In the verse above I have put those words in red.  On the stage, we have lights, camera, action. In this passage, we have come, hear, act.  In some respects they are similar. 

On the stage, the lights illuminate the scene.  In this passage, we have to come to God's Word before it can be illuminated for us.  On the stage, we need the camera to record the scene. In this passage, we must hear to have God's Word recorded in our hearts and minds.  On the stage, there must be action or it's going to be a pretty dull scene.  In this passage, we must put into action what we have heard.

All three components are necessary for both arenas or something essential will be missing.  If we don't come to God's Word, we can't hear it and if we aren't hearing it we can't act on it.  

How many times, however, do I come to God's Word, hear God's Word but go away and do not act on it?  It's so easy for me to get distracted with social media, house work, or other things that are rolling around in my mind, that I forget to put the action into what I have come and heard and then my day comes tumbling down around me when things happen to upset me.  My foundation wasn't in place by putting what I have learned in God's Word in front of me to help me respond to life's irritations in a godly way.

How about you?  Do you have trouble with this too?  Let's challenge ourselves to take what we read (hear) from God's Word, put it on a 3 x 5 card or in our planner where we know we will see it.  Review it often through the day and see if when those frustrations and trials come our way that maybe we will respond in a more godly way to them, rather than react in irritation. This is something I  really need to do as evidenced by some of my Facebook posts recently.