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The Lord reminded me of an very important but often forgotten point.

Talking about doing something is never as good as doing it!

I happen to be someone who likes to plan things out before attempting them. There’s obviously nothing wrong with planning of course, but the planning can become an excuse for not attempting the action.

Or to paraphrase Proverbs 14:23: Hard work brings rewards, but talking about work brings poverty

This message can be broken down to three simple words….

Do It Now!

There are two foundational truths that challenge us to do the work now. The first is God calls us to obedience

• We are called by God to become “doer’s of the word, and not hearers only” (James 1:22). This means a true Christian will obey the Lords commands (James 2:14-26), so submission is a fruit or “outgrowth” of Salvation.
• Christ illustrated this with the parable of the wise men where he says “Therefore whosoever heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth them, I will liken him unto a wise man, which built his house upon a rock” (Matthew 7:24) (emphasis added)
• Finally James states very clearly “Therefore to him that knoweth to do good, and doeth it not, to him it is sin.” (James 4:17)

The second truth is quite frightening. Satan doesn’t want us to do the work of God!

• He will come up with many different reasons why we can’t do the work that day (proverbs 26:13)
• He encourages us to put it off till tomorrow, even though we may not have tomorrow (James 4:14)
• Or do it when you “feel ready”

The devil knows that God desires for us to accomplish His will. So in order to destroy the plan of God, he will do everything possible to keep it from getting done!

There are many applications of doing it now, but for me it comes down to dealing with problems before they grow.

Jack Kent wrote a children’s book named “There’s No Such Thing as a Dragon.” It’s about a small boy who finds a small dragon in his room one morning, and tells his mother. Her response is “there’s no such thing as a dragon”! The dragon continually grows throughout the book while the mother still refuses to admit it even exists! Finally after the dragon has carried away the house, the boys mother finally admits there are such things as dragons. At that point the dragon became small again.

As someone who has spent far too much time ignoring the dragons in life till they start carrying away the house, let me beg of you. Do the work! And deal with your dragons when they are small.