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Read Introduction to James

 

“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

We now see in this verse the logic of self-deceit (1:22).

if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer,

The idea behind hearing the Word is to do the Word. The goal of Scripture is the transformation of character.

he is like a man observing his natural face in a mirror

A mirror shows us our dirty faces. We can correct this by washing our face. If we look at the mirror of God’s Word and do not wash our soul by confessing sin, then we are not applying the principles of the Word to our experience.

Principle:

To disassociate God’s Word from our lives is to dislocate its transforming power.

Application:

If the Word of God does not cause us to see our true spiritual condition, then there is something wrong with our understanding of its principles or its applications.

How many of us would find a black smudge on our face in the mirror and go to church without wiping it off? Yet we do that spiritually. We move about with spiritually dirty faces, with lives out of sync with God.

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