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 observing his natural face in a mirror; for he observes himself, goes away, and immediately forgets what kind of man he was. But he who looks into the perfect law of liberty and continues it it, and is not a forgetful hearer but a doer of the work, this one will be blessed in what he does. James 1:22-25
Eighteen years ago, when the Lord called me to start New Commandment Men’s Ministries after serving as a pastor for twenty years, I formed this mental mantra: “I want to do the Word.”
Prior to that sea change in my ministry, I spent decades immersing myself in the Word of God. I read it multiple times. I memorized huge portions of it. I spent five years learning Greek and four years learning Hebrew both as an undergraduate and then as a seminary student. Over a period of twenty years I translated the Word of God from its original languages on a weekly basis. I taught it and preached over a thousand sermons from it. Also, there were the thousands of sermons I heard as a boy growing up under the preaching of the renowned Bible teacher, Dr. J. Vernon McGee.
“I know the Word inside and out,” I thought as I took my first furtive steps into my new ministry. “Now I want to do the Word.”
It wasn’t like I hadn’t been “doing the Word” before, of course. But obedience wasn’t my primary focus. One tends to give oneself a lot of slack after preaching one’s heart out. Good preaching covers a multitude of sins, right?
And then there were the institutions I had been involved in all my life – my home church, my seminary, my pastorates. They were wonderful, even amazing, in their own ways, but they had their flaws which sometimes dramatically reared their ugly heads.
My new “I want to do the Word” mantra was simply the expression of the determination I had to be more consistent — much more consistent — in my own life and in the organization I had just founded. No more walking away from the Word thinking I was obeying it just because I had read it/heard it/memorized it/translated it/preached it.
A few years ago my pastor mentioned to me that one thing he liked about our men’s team ministry to our widows and single parents was that there weren’t any problems with it. There weren’t any turf battles. There weren’t any complaints. No issues at all.
“Well there you go,” I thought, “I’m actually just doing the Word.
This post first appeared in NewCommandment.org.
Since 2003 New Commandment Men’s Ministries has helped hundreds of churches throughout North American and around the world recruit teams of men who permanently adopt their widowed and single parents in their congregations for the purpose of donating two hours of service to them one Saturday morning each month. We accomplish this with a free training site called New Commandment Men’s Ministry
Learn how to mobilize your men’s ministry to meet every pressing need in your church here.
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Learn how to form teams of men for every widow, single mom
and fatherless child in your church at NewCommandment.org.
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