I believe you are thinking of a passage in the book of James when you refer to “being a doer of the word.” Let’s read James 1:21-25, “Therefore lay aside all filthiness and overflow of wickedness, and RECEIVE WITH MEEKNESS THE IMPLANTED WORD, which is able to save your souls. But BE DOERS OF THE WORD, and NOT HEARERS ONLY, deceiving yourselves. For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man observing his natural face in a mirror; for he observes himself, goes away, and immediately forgets what kind of man he was. But he who looks into the perfect law of liberty and continues in it and is not a forgetful hearer but a DOER OF THE WORK, this one will be blessed in WHAT HE DOES.”

This passage is teaching us a simple but most important lesson. We (believers in Christ) should READ God’s Word (which goes into our minds and heart) and then OBEY IT! We deceive ourselves by thinking we can simply listen to one teach the Bible (or read it for ourselves) and then believe our lives are changed for the good. It’s not enough to “HEAR the word”; we must also “OBEY the word.” In other words, God’s Word will teach us “what we should DO” and then “we need to DO IT.” James gives us a simple object lesson to illustrate this. If you go to your mirror in the morning and you see you have a dirty face, what good does it do if you walk away without cleaning your face? Your “looking into the mirror” was an exercise in futility; it did you no good. But if you wash the dirt off from your face, the mirror has benefited you and you walk away from it blessed. And so it is with God’s precious Word, we must HEAR what God is teaching us to do and then we must “act on it” by OBEYING His teachings to us. This, dear friend, is what it means to be a “DOER of the Word.”

Let’s consider a clear example from Scripture. In John 13:1-11 the Lord Jesus gave His disciples a lesson in HUMILITY by washing their feet and then He said to them, “If I then, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet. I have given you an example, that you should DO as I have done to you. Most assuredly, I say to you, a servant is not greater than his master, nor is he who is sent greater than he who sent him. IF YOU KNOW THESE THINGS, BLESSED ARE YOU IF YOU DO THEM” (verses 14-17). The disciples watched the Lord humbly serve them and heard His words to “DO as I have done.” They were definitely “HEARERS of the word,” but to be blessed by what they had seen and heard, they must be a “DOER of the word” by serving once another.

I will close by making an appeal to all my fellow believers in Christ. We say we love our Savior and desire to follow Him as His disciples. Here is what our Lord Jesus says about discipleship in Matthew 28:19-20, “Go therefore and MAKE DISCIPLES of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, TEACHING THEM TO OBSERVE ALL THINGS THAT I HAVE COMMANDED YOU.” Baptism is the initial act where we are willing to identify with Christ as our Lord and Savior and we are telling the world we want to “follow Jesus Christ.” Yet from that point on we will be TAUGHT His commandments and then we are to OBSERVE them. We are constantly HEARING His word and then we are to be DOERS of His word. One of His most important commandments is seen in John 13:34-35, “A new commandment I give to you, THAT YOU LOVE ONE ANOTHER; as I have loved you, that you also love one another. By this all will know that you are My disciples, IF YOU HAVE LOVE FOR ONE ANOTHER.” We have HEARD His commandment to love one another, but are we DOING it?  (DO)  (705.3)