(James 1:21-27)…..21 Therefore lay aside all filthiness and overflow of wickedness, and receive with meekness the implanted word, which is able to save your souls. 22 But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves. 23 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; 24 for he observes himself, goes away, and immediately forgets what kind of man he was. 25 But he who looks into the perfect law of liberty and continues in it, and is not a forgetful hearer but a doer of the work, this one will be blessed in what he does. 26 If anyone among you thinks he is religious, and does not bridle his tongue but deceives his own heart, this one’s religion is useless. 27 Pure and undefiled religion before God and the Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their trouble, and to keep oneself unspotted from the world.
It is vitally important that we receive in us the implanted Word of God into our very bosum. To receive the Word means, to take the Word (as my possession), to contain the word (as being held by it), to be the object of (as governed by it). You have heard of the Berean’s in the book of acts, this was the way they approached the Scriptures in their daily life (Acts 17:11). There are some have heard the Word of God all their lives but have never received it. They read it, but don’t believe it. They read it, but don’t learn from it. They read it, but never apply it. So on and on it goes, and the Word is never implanted in them. Too many Christians mark their bibles, but their bibles never mark them!
Notice what James says about the implanted Word of God. It is able to save your soul (Romans 1:16-17). But we cannot benefit from our study of the Word if we continue to engage in wickedness. Maybe this is why so many don’t get very much out of their study of the Bible. The idea of implanted is that the Word becomes a permanent fixture in our lives (Psalm 119:11).
Just hearing the Word of God, and talking about the Word of God, is not enough. We must be “doers of the Word and not hearers only.” God’s Word is not just to be stored in the back of our minds, but to be lived out in our lives (Luke 6:46-49)(Luke 8:19-21)(1 John 2:15-17). As I am responsible for what I preach or teach to you, you are responsible for what you hear, and responsible for living it out in your life. If we are not doers of the Word, but hearers only, we deceive ourselves. The word deceive means to be misled. So if there is no doing of the Word of God in our lives, we are misleading ourselves to thinking we are right with God, a very scary presumption on our part.