I began studying in the book of James yesterday. And anytime I sit down to study the Word of God, I pray. This morning I prayed that the Lord would help me to rightly divide and discern His Word, that He would open my heart and mind to receive His Word, and that He would help me to become who He'd have me to be, for me to find my identity in Him. Color me blessed by the Holy Ghost when I read my scripture today, James 1:19-27, and His Word leapt off the page and into my heart.
This particular portion of scripture is concerned with being doers of the Word, not hearers only. How often do we sit on our pews or in our comfy chairs, or like I am at my kitchen table, and study His Word, only to pack it back up with our Bibles? Day in and day out. I am so guilty of this. I am guilty of hearing His Word, and having it speak directly to me, and the moment my circumstances change, or the company changes, or I am interrupted by a wild child, I forget it. It might as well have gone in one ear and out of the other. It didn't transform me one bit. Because to transform me, I have to be a doer, not just a hearer.
My boys have two totally different personalities and if you've never met them, it is obvious within just a few moments spent with them. They talk differently, they play differently, they dress differently (when I'm not dressing them just alike because it's so stinkin' cute), and they learn differently. Kieran is very much a visual learner, a lot like his Daddy. They find something they're interested in and they'll absorb themselves in it, watching YouTube videos, one right after the other, to learn more about it and how to do it. Devlin and I are much more alike. Tell us about it all day long and it'll go right over our heads. Put us to doing it, and we won't forget it. But in any case, though we are learning differently, we are learning by doing something. Whether its watching a video about baking a cake or dragging a dusty recipe book down from the shelf (I don't like to cook) and making the cake from scratch, we have involved ourselves in the process of learning.
This is what James is telling us to do. Just hearing the Word isn't enough. We've got to get involved, we've got to do what the Bible says, we've got to live how the Bible says, we've got to worship how the Bible says...or we're deceiving ourselves.
In verses 21 to 25 we read of the man who beholds his natural self in the mirror. He has been a hearer of the Word and not a doer. The Bible says that he has deceived himself and that when he walks away from the mirror, he forgets what manner of man he was...he forgets who he is, forgets that he is supposed to be a Christian and he should't be in the company he's in...forgets that he is supposed to be a Christian and he shouldn't be in the place he's in...forgets that he is supposed to be a Christian and he shouldn't be doing the things he's doing. He is supposed to be a Christian but that is not his true identity. He has deceived himself and like the double minded man in verse 8, is unstable in all his ways.
Verse 21 tells us to lay aside all filthiness and superfluity of naughtiness and receive with meekness the engrafted Word, which is able to save our souls, both literally and figuratively. Verse 25 tells us that the man who looks not at himself but at the perfect law of liberty and continues therein, being not a forgetful hearer, but a doer of the work, this is the man that shall be blessed.
If we can't look in our mirrors and see Jesus reflected back, then we need to worry less about the grey hairs, blemishes, and wrinkles we see, and more about transforming our hearts and lives to be doers of His Word...or we are going to walk away from the mirror and out into the world and forget who we are...children of God.
I want to be a doer of His Word, so transformed, that when I look upon myself, when my children and my husband look upon me, when the world looks upon me...that its Jesus that is seen, nothing else...and I never want to forget that I am a daughter of the King!
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