HH, Sir Godfrey Gregg D.Div
“But be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves.” James 1:22
Hearing and doing: they ought to be conjoined and to go hand in hand. “That house is best,” one says, “where Martha’s reconciled to Mary.”
Many hear — and fail to do. They listen carelessly and negligently, and the Word does not seize hold of them and lead them captive. They listen emotionally, and while the message enters the region of feeling and sentiment — it is kept outside the region of will. They listen selfishly, for their comfort and help, and they have no thought of their neighbours to whom they should carry the treasure which has enriched themselves. From such fruitless and barren hearing, the Lord deliver me.
But many do — and fail to hear. They busy themselves, out of an inborn love of work, out of philanthropy and sympathy, out of the desire to quiet conscience and to win a name for good deeds. Even Christians labour without sufficient hearkening in quietness and retirement, without adequate nourishment from the divine Word. Theirs is a surface activity which does not strike its roots deep down into the secret place of the heart. From such restless and self-righteous and superficial doing, the Lord deliver me.
Let me not hear without doing, for that is the part of a soul which consults only its own needs. Let me not do without hearing, for that is the part of a soul which goes only in its strength. First, let me get away for myself to the mountains of spices — that my heart may drink in the sweet fragrances of the better country. And then, when all my garments smell of myrrh and aloes and cassia — let me go and woo the dwellers in the desolation of the wilderness into the garden of the Lord.
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