Doers, not Merely Hearers

I'm working on my d-group lesson for tonight. We'll see how this goes. Because I'm thinking of scrapping the what I intended to do and camping out on a much smaller passage.

I've got about three weeks until "D-Day" (Due Date). So, I had thought I would just take our small group chapter by chapter through James. We haven't done James yet, and it was thrown out there by one of the girls. Seemed reasonable. Last week, however, I didn't get all through James 1 because it seemed they were really somewhere else (I could have been totally wrong, though). Maybe I was somewhere else: all I know is the lesson didn't go according to plan and I felt like I was trying too hard. I probably was. So, this week, I was going to finish James 1 and head onto 2. Now, I think I may give up on hitting all of James before Eliza is delivered (unless she's really late...).

The reason is this: the passage I have left in James is on being doers of the Word, not merely hearers. James 1:22-25 (ESV) says this:

But be doers of the Word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves. For if anyone is a hearer of the Word and not a doer, he is like a man who looks intently at his natural face in the mirror. For he looks at himself and goes away and at once forgets what he was like. But the one who looks into the perfect law, the law of liberty, and perseveres, being no hearer who forgets but a doer who acts, he will be blessed in his doing.

A discussion in my ladies' Bible study today got me to thinking. We talked about how ALL Scripture is God-breathed, and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness (2 Tim. 3:16). ALL of it, not just the parts that we like. And that we should be obedient to it. Through the course of study and conversation, the topic came around to forgiveness. And listening to some of the women share on how they don't want to forgive someone who has hurt them and hurt their families, I realized that one of the hardest Scriptures Christians seem to have trouble doing is forgiving. It was even said by one lady that she wasn't sure you had to in every situation, or that it should really be pushed. I have a great deal of respect for this woman, but her comment gave me pause. Hadn't we earlier said that ALL Scripture is God-breathed and that we should be obedient to it? Even if we didn't like it? Then what about the Scriptures that command us to forgive one another? (Matt. 6:14-15, 18:21-25; Mark 11:25; Luke 6:37, 17:1-4; Eph. 4:32; Col. 3:13) Then, shouldn't we forgive, even if we don't want to?

I am not saying in the least that it is easy to forgive. I know what it is to struggle with forgiveness. I have been betrayed by friends. I have had my confidence and worth utterly destroyed by others, even other believers. I am haunted sometimes by the things people have said to me, and sometimes I wish that God would punish them and make them see how deeply they have wounded me. I have had to watch as others have hurt my family members. There is one woman in particular that I still wish I could tell her off for believing she had the freedom to rebuke a member of my family based off a piece of gossip shared by another woman who really (viewing her position) should have known better than to repeat, let alone repeat as authority (and which piece of gossip was skewed, unfounded, and unfair). I know what it is to want to cream someone on behalf of someone I love rather than forgive. I'm not saying at all I've got this down pat. I do not at all judge the comments that were made or those that made them because I fully understand, but it has made me think.

Why? Why is it so hard for believers to forgive? Why do we sometime think we don't have to, though it's clearly commanded in Scripture? Especially in the light of the enormity of the forgiveness we ourselves have experienced from the Father? Why do we find this area so difficult and think that because it is difficult and so wrapped up in our emotions, we aren't called to be obedient in it? Because this is not the first discussion I've had with other believers on this topic: it's come up in Sunday School, Bible studies, among friends... It's definitely something that's out there and a struggle for more than just the ladies in my study or myself. But didn't Jesus say, "The one who has My commandments and keeps them is the one who loves Me" (John 14:21). So... doesn't that include the command to forgive? Even if it's hard? Even if we don't want to? Even if we don't feel like it? I think I may agree more and more with what one very wise woman said in our study today: that forgiveness is not a feeling but an action, not dependent on our feeling. I've believed for a long time that the idea that love is a feeling is a fallacy: it's a conscious decision, a choice, an action. I may need to add forgiveness to that list.

So, what does this have to do with d-group? No, I won't be teaching on forgiveness. At least not an entire lesson, though I might bring it up for discussion to see what the girls have to say. But today's discussion in Bible study did make me camp out on James 1:22-25. I want above all for d-group to be both a time of learning but also to be applicable and practical. Wild and crazy Bible stories are definitely fun. And ALL Scripture is good for equipping. :) But I think it would be a missed opportunity if we didn't look more closely at this passage and look at what that really encompasses. Because I think it encompasses more than we really think sometimes. So, tonight, if I can pull myself together enough, I think I might gather together Scriptures that represent what we should be doing and discuss what's easy and what's hard and what that really means for us as believers. Because I think it's an on-going battle for us, isn't it? After all, even Paul said, "For I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate... For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing." (Romans 7:15, 19) Sigh. You and me both, Paul.