As we finish this week of looking at different ways God speaks, today we're going to look at the role of taking action and hearing God. One of the most powerful ways to discover what God thinks and how God feels is joining him where he is at work and the world around us.

So my prayer today is that God opens our eyes and ears

to discover fresh parts of how he declares his hearts to us,

and that we're empowered to take action today in even more meaningful ways.

Welcome to the First 15 podcast.

Faith and action go together.

Understanding and works are tethered, joined together at salvation through the working of the

Holy Spirit and the lives of believers. James 2. 14 through 17 ask us, what good is it, my brothers,

if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can that faith save him? If a brother or sister is poorly clothed and lacking

a daily food, and one of you says to him, go in peace, be warmed and filled, without giving them

the things they need for the body, what good is that? So also faith by itself, if it does not have

works, is dead.

The poor, orphaned, widowed, and lost don't just need a word from God.

They need us to act on our beliefs and love and serve selflessly with the help of the Holy Spirit.

Gathering together as believers to worship

is just part of what God intends for us as his children. If we are to receive all that God has

for us, if we are to walk in the abundant life God intends, we must resolve to be doers of the word.

James 1. 23 through 25 gives us a window into the life of a believer who never puts action

to his faith.

Scripture says, 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 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 is like, but the one who looks into the perfect law,

...