December 19

A hearer of the word ... a doer of the work. James 1:23 ; — Jas 1:25

Religion may be learned on Sunday, but it is lived in the week–day’s work. The torch of religion may be lit in the church, but it does its burning in the shop and on the street. Religion seeks its life in prayer, but it lives its life in deeds. It is planted in the closet, but it does its growing out in the world. It plumes itself for flight in songs of praise, but its actual flights are in works of love. It resolves and meditates on faithfulness as it reads its Christian lesson in the Book of Truth, but “faithful is that faithful does.” It puts its armor on in all the aids and helps of the sanctuary as its dressing–room, but it combats for the right, the noble, and the good in all the activities of practical existence, and its battle ground is the whole broad field of life. — John Doughty.