A New Devotion - Letting Our Actions Speak

Here's a new devotion that I wrote. It's based on the passage below. You can find a recording of this devotion at the bottom of the page.

James 1:19-27 [Contemporary English Version]

My dear friends, you should be quick to listen and slow to speak or to get angry. If you are angry, you cannot do any of the good things God wants done. You must stop doing anything immoral or evil. Instead be humble and accept the message planted in you to save you.

Obey God's message! Don't fool yourselves by just listening to it. If you hear the message and don't obey it, you are like people who stare at themselves in a mirror and forget what they look like as soon as they leave. But you must never stop looking at the perfect law that sets you free. God will bless you in everything you do, if you listen and obey, and don't just hear and forget.

If you think you are being religious, but can't control your tongue, you are fooling yourself, and your religion is useless. Religion that pleases God the Father must be pure and spotless. You must help needy orphans and widows and not let this world make you evil.

Letting Our Actions Speak

Have you ever heard the saying, “Actions speak louder than words”? Well, when I was a kid, I think I heard my mom tell me this on a nearly daily basis. And frankly, looking back, I’m really glad she did. You see, I think she didn’t want me to grow into one of those people who lived as though what they said meant far more than what they actually did. In other words, she didn’t want me to believe that a promise made was more important than a promise fulfilled or that it’s enough to express indignation at injustice or cruelty while doing nothing about it. You see, for her, anger was never a substitute for action. And I’ll tell you, that’s what she drummed into my head and my heart as I grew up.

And now I’m a preacher and a teacher, and it seems as though my whole life is centered on words. And you know, that’s why I’m glad that mom instilled this particular set of values. You see, I hope I always recognize that what I preach and teach only has value if it motivates some kind of positive action. And for that reason, I need to listen to others, to what they think and feel, so that I might give the kind of direction and guidance that they might be willing to claim. And I need to practice, as best I can, what I preach so that both the confrontation or the comfort I might offer will seem genuine and not artificial. And I certainly need to control my ego, because the second I convince myself of my superior spirituality is the second I become a spiritual fraud. You see, even though the words I use are important, their real significance lies in the response that they produce. And while I recognize that I often fall far short of what one might call the ideal, I pray I’m always aware that, when the roll is finally called up yonder, the actions I take and encourage will always speak louder than the words I choose to use.