Now What? What do I need to do?

In James 1:22-25 we are given a warning that is important to remember at this critical step. James tells us to not be simply a hearer of the Word. He describes a hearer as someone who sees himself as he is, but does not follow through with making changes. A hearer is the one who knows how a passage applies to his life but thinks it is enough to simply to know without doing something about it.

You might walk away from the passage in Matthew 26 and realize you have not made any real sacrifices for God, but not follow through and actually create a plan to make some sort of sacrifice out of your love for the Savior. It becomes important to take what we are learning and have it change the way we live.

Let’s take what we have learned from Matthew 26 as an example for how we can develop this plan. Once we determined that we need to make a sacrifice to demonstrate how much we love God, the question is, "What could we actually do?" Is there a special need you know about that you could help provide? Is someone moving and you could volunteer to help? Does a senior adult at your church need your assistance? Once you determine what you need to be doing, this step is designed to help you follow through and put it into practice.

There might be times when you cannot come up with a plan on your own and will need to get help from your parents, a youth worker or pastor. You might also want to let someone who can keep you accountable know about the plan you are creating. The point is to make sure you become a doer and not just a hearer.

With practice and diligence, OnTrack can help you develop this skill. Each devotional concludes by asking you to consider how you can put into practice what you have learned from the passage. You will notice that some days there are a few questions after the thought to help you think through how you can implement what you have just applied to your life. On the other days, you will find a place in your guide for you to write down your own plan to apply the answers you think of from your personal study.

The ultimate goal is to help you develop the skill of reading a passage of Scripture and creating your own devotional thoughts based on the questions you come up with, the answers you find to those questions, the ability to apply them to your own life and the ability to create a plan to see your life change. To be able to determine what God is saying to us, we must begin with observation questions, find answers to those questions, apply those answers to your life and finally create a plan to implement the application in your life.