Many of you listening today see the value in being a part of a local church. Week after week you join with other believers to worship, pray, and hear a message from the Word of God. What sometimes happens is that church attendance becomes a tradition or a ritual.  A man got out of his seat on a Sunday morning and as he was leaving the church said to someone, "Well, that's over." "No," said his friend, "this is where it begins." There is an old proverb: "I hear, and I forget. I see, and I remember. I do, and I understand." Ask yourself at the end of the sermon this Sunday what you are going to do about this passage ? How does God want you to change ? What must you do to bring about change ? What's the first step ? Where will you begin? It’s here, in the doing, in the practice of obedience we begin to see the blessings of God in our lives.I’ve never met a person who didn’t want to be blessed.  Usually, even people who aren’t Christians will allow you to pray for them – “hey, it can’t hurt.”  We say “God bless you” and “God bless America.”  We pray and ask God to bless us and those we love.  Some people come to God because of his promises to bless.  We want God’s blessings!When things are going well in our lives – we usually thank God for his blessings.  When things aren’t going so well, we wonder why he isn’t blessing us.  We ask people to pray for us that God would bless us.  Many people give financially to tv and radio ministries because they were told they would be blessed.  I would guess that from time to time, people even give to the ministries of this church, with the primary motivation of being blessed.In one sense we have to acknowledge that we are already blessed.  Would you agree?  If you have shelter, if you have food, if you have clothes, if you have employment, if you have freedom, if you have family, if you have friends, and if you have health you are blessed. Not to mention all the spiritual blessings…James 1:22-25 - “Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says. Anyone who listens to the word but does not do what it says is like someone who looks at his face in a mirror and, after looking at himself, goes away and immediately forgets what he looks like. But whoever looks intently into the perfect law that gives freedom, and continues in it—not forgetting what they have heard, but doing it—they will be blessed in what they do.”James is saying there are people who declare that they are followers of Christ but there is a difference between calling yourself a Christian and actually following Jesus. This is the point James is making in our text this morning.  There is a difference between those who claim to be believers and those who actually are believers; there is a difference between those who go to church and those who follow Christ.  The difference is obedience.Obedience is the path to having God’s blessing on your life. We have to be careful here because we might define blessings differently than God does. You might not have everything you want in your life, but God will meet all of your needs. That’s his promise.Notice verse 25, He says, “whoever looks intently into the perfect law…” Think about a brain surgeon.  As he performs his surgery his attention is extremely focused.  Or a man who pans for gold.  As searches through all the dirt and the debris looking closely for small pieces of gold.  We are to give God’s Word our close and careful attention.  He promises that if we would continue in our obedience to God’s Word, we will be blessed.Today’s Challenge: Remember this: We are blessed in what we do, James doesn’t say we are blessed in what we feel. The blessing comes in the doing not in the feeling. Don't wait for the feeling to obey the word.

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