James 1.22-25
“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 who looks intently at his natural face in a mirror. For he looks at himself and goes away and at once forgets what he was like. But the one who looks into the perfect law, the law of liberty, and perseveres, being no hearer who forgets but a doer who acts, he will be blessed in his doing.”
James warns that people who hear the word but don’t do the word are self-deceived. Why? Because hearing without doing means that even though they have been exposed to the truth, they resist or refuse to live by the truth. They have deceived themselves into living by a standard different than what they heard in scripture.
Whenever we read the word of God, we must make a decision about what we are going to do in response to it. What we must not do is read the word, hear and acknowledge its truth, and then go about our life and work without implementing the truth of the word.
At some point, everyone has done it. We have all read scripture that speaks truth into our life, that convicts us of some attitude or behavior that we know we need to change, and then a few hours later we fall back into that very same behavior. That is the battle we all must fight.
The book of James speaks to us and says, “Don’t do that. Don’t just hear the word, do the word. Don’t try to justify your disobedience. If you disobey the truth, don’t rationalize … repent!”
Self-deception is an attempt to avoid the truth about our own behavior. But as James says, despite our excuses, the mirror of the word of God always gives us an accurate picture of ourselves. It is foolish in the extreme to think we can hide from God or avoid the truth of his word.
Jeremiah 16.17: “For my eyes are on all their ways. They are not hidden from me, nor is their iniquity concealed from my eyes.”
Jeremiah 23.23-24: “Am I a God at hand, declares the Lord, and not a God far away? Can a man hide himself in secret places so that I cannot see him? declares the Lord. Do I not fill heaven and earth? declares the Lord.”
Psalm 69.5: “O God, you know my folly; the wrongs I have done are not hidden from you.”
Deception is dangerous. Self-deception is disastrous. God calls us to Himself and asks us to be real. No games. No excuses. No self-justifying stories. That is the wise choice, because God sees everything anyway. Nothing is hidden from Him. Read the word and obey. If you disobey, don’t rationalize … repent.
We should regularly pray what David prayed in Psalm 139: “Search me, O God, and know my heart! Try me and know my thoughts! And see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting!”
Coram Deo
