You cannot receive the words of eternal life simply by reading them or hearing them spoken. Those who think they are improving their situation simply by reading or hearing God’s word are practicing a particularly harmful form of dishonesty.1
Receiving the words of eternal life is about what you become,2 not what you hear. There is an immense difference between knowing what someone is like and only knowing what they look like. Those who live the words of eternal life know how Jesus is because they are like him, not because they have heard how he is from someone else. Receiving the words of eternal life begins by perceiving them,1424 but the benefits do not begin until and unless you actually make the improvements they suggest.1425 Familiarity with God’s word does not make you righteous;1426 Living it does.1427 Those who “hear” the word of God with their ears without improving their actions are not his children,1428 but hypocritical liars.1429
Footnotes
- 1. Wherefore lay apart all filthiness and superfluity of naughtiness, and receive with meekness the engrafted word, which is able to save your souls. But be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves. (James 1:21-22) ↩
- 2. For this cause also thank we God without ceasing, because, when ye received the word of God which ye heard of us, ye received it not as the word of men, but as it is in truth, the word of God, which effectually worketh also in you that believe. (1 Thessalonians 2:13) ↩