Blessings From The Bible Series

Blessings From The Bible

In America we can find Bibles everywhere. They are for sale in grocery stores, drug stores and of course book stores. They are available in all shapes and sizes. Some of them are paper bound and others are leather bound. Some of them now even look like magazines. Last year there were over 500 million Bibles published in the world in over 18,000 different languages.

Today in America we have the Bible available more than any other time in the history of our country – yet millions of people still miss the blessings that the Bible can give. Why? Because receiving the blessings of the Bible is not automatic. Let me be clear on this – the Bible IS a book of blessing. It promises to give you comfort, strength, hope, wisdom, joy, power and purpose for living. But just because you own a Bible doesn’t mean that you’re going to get any benefit from it. You must be a doer of the Word and not just a hearer.

We have been conducting a study through the book of James. James is a very practical book and James tells us how we can get “Blessings From The Bible”. Follow along with me as I read verse twenty five of chapter one:

“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.” James 1:25 (NKJV)

James here is talking about reading, studying and following the guidelines of the Bible. He calls the Bible the: “Perfect Law of Liberty”. It is the Perfect Law of Liberty because it promises us freedom and blessings. It has exactly what we need. James gives us three steps to get a blessing from the Bible.

Step One: I Must RECEIVE God’s Word

Let’s read James chapter one verse twenty one. James says:

“Lay aside all filthiness and overflow of wickedness, and receive with meekness the implanted word, which is able to save your souls.” James 1:21 (NKJV)

Go ahead and circle the word “receive”. It is translated in some versions of the Bible as “accept”. This word in Greek is a term of hospitality. It means “to welcome”. In other words – it means “come on in”. If we are going to be blessed by the Word of God – we must first welcome the Word of God into our lives. We must accept it. We must receive it. We must be receptive.

But notice that James gives us two conditions in verse twenty one on how we are to be receptive.

Condition One: Be CLEAN

Condition Two: Be TEACHABLE

Let’s spend some time on each of these. Let’s look first at being clean.

Go ahead and circle the phrase: “Lay aside all filthiness and overflow of wickedness”. James is telling us here that we need to be clean before the Word can be “implanted” into our lives.

Before you can plant any seed in the ground – you need to prepare the soil. You need to do some weeding. You need to make the ground ready for the seed to come. Jesus talked about this when He told the parable in Matthew chapter thirteen:

"Behold, a sower went out to sow. And as he sowed, some seed fell by the wayside; and the birds came and devoured them. Some fell on stony places, where they did not have much earth; and they immediately sprang up because they had no depth of earth. But when the sun was up they were scorched, and because they had no root they withered away. And some fell among thorns, and the thorns sprang up and choked them. But others fell on good ground and yielded a crop: some a hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty. He who has ears to hear, let him hear!" Matthew 13:3-9 (NKJV)

James tells us that we need to prepare the soil for the seed to have the most production. Go ahead and look at verse twenty one again and circle the word “filthiness”. James tells us to lay aside all filthiness. The word “filthiness” in the Greek actually means – earwax. When you have earwax in your ears – it blocks your hearing. When you have sin in your life – it blocks your receiving a blessing from God. It prevents God’s word from getting into your heart. James is telling us to get rid of the filth that is in our lives. Get rid of anything that will keep us from hearing the Word of God. The Bible says, “Get rid of all the emotional garbage, the old habits, the junk in your life – so you can hear clearly what God has to say to you.”