The one who thinks that knowledge is all that is necessary will fail.
It is the doer of the Word, the man who practices it, lives it, walks in it, that builds it into his own life, whom God honors.
There is a grave danger of deluding our own selves.
We know the Word. We may be familiar with the original Greek or Hebrew. We may know the history of the Word, but that is all wasted energy if we do not live the Word, practice it.
When you come to a hard place, and need money, you resolutely turn to the Lord, because you know that “My God shall supply every need of yours.”
You have taken your place. You act the part of a real believer.
Instead of turning to the beggarly elements of the world, you turn to the Father.
Or if a loved one is sick, instead of being frightened, you remember the Word: “Surely He hath borne our sicknesses and carried our diseases. And we have come to esteem Him as the One who was stricken, smitten of God and afflicted with those diseases.”
We know it now. We act on that Word. We do not fear; we are not disturbed, because we know that the Word says that with His stripes we are healed.
Or if some calamity has come, some rumor, the adversary has stirred things to our detriment, we know that the Word tells us in Isaiah 54:17, “No weapon that is formed against thee shall prosper, and every tongue that shall rise against thee in judgment, thou shalt condemn. This is the heritage of the servants of the Lord, and their righteousness is of me.”
You see, you can trust Him. You bank on Him. Your expectations are from Him. You do not turn to the beggarly help of Sense Knowledge.
We do the Word, we live the Word, we act the Word, we trust implicitly in the Word, and we know that God and His throne are back of every word. That gives us a quiet, restful confidence.
John 15:9, “Abide ye in my love.”
You remember that He loves you and that you are born of that new kind of love. You remember I John 4:8, “God is love.” And you remember that you are a partaker of His nature. (II Peter 1:4.)
And so, with a quiet confidence, you live love, you practice love. You are a doer of love. You are not a hearer only. You are not only an admirer of love, but you are an actual doer. You live in the love realm. You speak love, you walk in love, you live the love life.
John 13:34, 35, “A new commandment I give unto you that you love one another, even as I have loved you.”
You face that squarely and you decide it definitely in your own life, that you are going to love men “even as.” That means that you are going to practice it.
Men may not understand you. They may think that you are unwise. But you live this love life. You are taking Jesus’ place, acting as Jesus would act. You are one that loves as Jesus loved, and you are not deluding yourself now; for in John 8:12, Jesus said, “I am the light of the world. He that followeth (or practices what I teach)… shall have the light of life.”
You are going to prove to the world that you have the light. They that walk in human reason are walking in darkness, and they know not whither they go. They have deluded themselves. The great teachings are mere doctrines to them, a part of their creed. They will assent that it is true, but they dissent when you ask them to practice it.
The one who loves as Jesus loved will not delude anyone else.
There are Word-hearers, mere listeners-good talkers, but not doers.
John 15:5-8, “I am the vine; ye are the branches. He that abideth in me and I in him, the same beareth much fruit.”
What kind of fruit is it? It is love fruit; It is faith fruit; it is prayer fruit. It is the same kind of fruit that Jesus bore.
It will be doing what Jesus did.
“If ye abide in me and my words abide in you; ask whatsoever ye will, and it shall be done unto you.”
The doer abides in Christ, and His words are living in him in the measure that he lives them, does them, practices them.
All his decisions are made by the Word. He is living in the realm of the living Christ. Notice this eighth verse: “Herein is my Father glorified, that ye bear much fruit; and so shall ye be my disciples.”
What kind of fruit is it? It is the fruit that comes from doing the Word.
The hearer may show many blossoms of promise, but it is the doer that delivers the ripened fruit. The Word lives in him; he lives in the Word. He is the fruit-bearing branch-a real doer.
Prayer is a reality. He is not talking off into space. He is in the Throne Room in the presence of the Father. Here the Name of Jesus is always honored. He receives that for which he asks.
Did you notice, “As you live in me and my words live in you”?
That is the real doing of the Word, not just a doctrine, but God speaking and God living in His own Word in us.