James 1:22 (CSB)
But be doers of the word and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves.
I want to tell you a story about a man who was an expert on the color blue. He had dedicated his entire life to understanding every nuance and shade of blue. He isn't just a man who knows about blue; he's a bona fide master of blue. In all his great wisdom about the color blue, you would never know it by walking through his house.
If you and I went to visit him, we would step into his house, and he would pour out an ocean of knowledge on the color blue, and he would take us on a grand tour of every room that is stacked with can after can of blue paint. You'd be overwhelmed by the vast number of different shades of blue. He will show you the different ranges of blue, from the comforting familiarity of Robin's Egg Blue to the depths of Midnight Blue and every variation in between. No doubt you will be amazed, because everyone is. Everyone leaves awestruck by the massive amount of blue he has come to master.
You might expect that his walls would be a rainbow of blue, but you would see only a dusky eggshell white on every wall. You would wonder why he hasn't painted his walls blue. And if you dare ask, he will begin his circular argument about how he studies blue every day. He studies how the sunlight interacts with each shade of blue and how each different hue impacts the mood of every type of room. But the truth at the foundation of all his circular talking is much simpler: he hates to paint. He's all knowledge with no application.
He's awash in a sea of blue knowledge, while his walls are dingy and untouched. He's surrounded by colorless, lifeless, ugly walls. As much as he loves the color blue, his lack of application keeps them immersed in a world that is dull and colorless.
Have you known people who gather cans and cans of biblical knowledge, stacking them up to the ceilings of their minds, but never apply what they know? They have buckets of biblical knowledge that are gathering dust, serving no real purpose for their lives or the world around them.
Is your knowledge of Jesus and His Word transforming you from the inside out? During Jesus’s ministry, He was in constant turmoil with the religious leaders, who had accumulated buckets and buckets of biblical knowledge. Their primary focus was the coming Messiah. They knew every nuance of where He would come from and what family He would be born into as they examined every aspect of what the Bible taught about the coming King. But, when they saw Jesus doing Messianic things like setting captives free, they said, “He can cast out demons because he is empowered by the prince of demons (Matthew 9:34; NLT).” How could this happen? There are layers and layers of reasons, and among them is the fact that throughout all their Bible study, their hearts remained untransformed.
Your objective in learning more about Jesus through devotion, prayer, Bible study, worship, fellowship, and service is not merely to amass knowledge about Jesus but to experience the life transforming power of Jesus. Learning about Jesus is not just some theory to help you understand your life; it is a set of Kingdom principles that are to be lived out in how you love God and everyone around you. So take up the brush and the rollers and start painting all of life around you with the colors of the Kingdom. Then you, along with everyone around you, will be amazed at how the light of the Word of God and the Holy Spirit interact with the shades of the Kingdom.