“If any man among you seem to be religious….” James 1:26a
I meet a lot of people who can quote scripture, but the fact that you can quote it isn’t what qualifies you to be a Christian. The devil can quote scripture- he did to Jesus in the wilderness. I remember many years ago having a young man in our church who would get up and quote scripture after scripture after scripture. You would have been impressed and thought that this guy was really a “great” Christian. But if that’s what you thought, you would have been wrong. The guy was demon possessed. (Thank God he finally got delivered.) The demons know the scriptures (probably better than most Christians do).
The mark of Christianity is not that you can quote scripture, but that you “live” the scriptures. If you think that you are such a wonderful Christian because you can recite verse after verse, or because you have memorized chapters upon chapters, unless you are living (putting into practice what they say), you are deceiving yourself. The Bible says that it’s he who “does” the word that is justified. (Romans 2:13) You can’t quote the “Thou Shalt Nots” and then turn around and do what they say not to do. You can point scripture at others trying to get the speck out of their eyes when you have a log in your own. You can’t talk about the commandments then break them yourself. You can’t quote the law of God and then violate it with your lifestyle.
The world is not impressed that you can quote scriptures, they want to see someone who walks what they talk. And in case you didn’t know it… God is not impressed that you can quote scriptures either. He wants you to “do” the word, He wants you to apply it to your life, put it into practice, allow it to govern your thoughts, deeds, actions, and plans. He wants you to be a “living epistle read of all men” (2 Cor. 3:2) instead of walking around trying to prove what a good Christian you are just because you know a lot of scriptures.
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