Live Out The Details
“If you listen to the Word and don’t live out the message you hear, you become like the person who looks in the mirror of the Word to discover the reflection of his face in the beginning. You perceive how God sees you in the mirror of the Word, but then you go out and forget your divine origin. But those who set their gaze deeply into the perfecting law of liberty are fascinated by and respond to the truth they hear and are strengthened by it—they experience God’s blessing in all that they do.” James 1:23-25TPT
Listening to and living out God’s instructions are as vastly different as night and day. As a mother and wife I’ve learned a great phenomena— I can give a child or Lou detailed instructions to the minutest detail. The completed task will not even remotely resemble what I spoke out in instructions. —Why? Because the ‘heard’ words translated in the brain and the living out instructions are vastly different.
EXA: ‘Please put these towels away in the bathroom, these in the kitchen, and these in the half-bath.’
I arrive later to find all three types of towels in the bathroom and not even in the cabinet.
There’s a person I know who has attended church for about eight years. Often, (per what they’ve told me,) they’ve frequently gone forward to the altar, reads the Bible daily and prays. Jesus said, “You will know them by their fruits. Grapes are not gathered from thorn bushes nor figs from thistles, are they?” Matt 7:16NASB. As the accountability partner, —
***I’ve asked about loving others— reply, “They get what they give.”
***Why so controlling— “Tired of being told what to do. It’s my turn to run the show.”
***Where does all the anger and rage come from— “People don’t understand what I want and need.”
I’ve completely backed out our relationship. Why? This person may look at the mirror of God’s Word but doesn’t understand the “divine origin,” —where they come from and whose they are. All this person desires is within grasp, but by not gazing “deeply into the perfecting law of liberty,” they squeeze life with bare hands between their tightly closed fingers, like a squeezed banana.
Living out the details is impossible without surrendering our personhood-mind-will-emotions to Jesus. I experienced this week again, my lack of personal control of Debbie. When I silently cried out to Jesus, the situation began turning. His power lifts me out of my weakness. For lovers of Jesus living out of Him is a situation by situation, moment by moment series of choices.
What about you? Can you? Will you turn to Jesus to help you live out the details? It’s your choice. You choose.
PRAYER: Father God, I can’t make it on my own. I think these readers are probably in the same boat with me. Help us to stop, ask You to move in and help us see we’re Yours, not needing to fight these battles and take care of these details alone, in Jesus’ name I pray.
by Debbie Veilleux
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