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 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.”
Most of us have a garden at our house. It might be tiny, small, or big, depending on the availability of land and other resources. We take good care of the plants by watering it on time and by providing manure to it. If the plants don’t take up the manure, it will never have the quality that we expected. In the same way, the word of God is available to us and if we are not applying the same in our lives, then we are deceiving ourselves. God doesn’t need people who are stuffed with Biblical knowledge, He needs people who obey His words! We might have had heard thousands of sermons, we might have been to mega crusades and had heard from famous missionaries and preachers of God. But, if we are just going and commenting on the sermons as wonderful, it doesn’t have any use for our lives.
Apostle James gives us a comparison concerning this. “A person looking himself in a mirror.” A mirror gives the actual appearance of the person who is before it. A person can never make proper changes to his face due to two conditions. Firstly, if he is not attending to the process properly and secondly if the mirror is having blemishes or scars as it was not cleaned properly. The word of God is perfect and it helps to correct us if we are approaching it with the right attitude. Amend our life or apply the word of God to our life. Amendment of life is the greatest repentance.
The one who abides the word of GOD will be blessed (verse 25). The greatest blessedness is narrated here, “Look into the perfect law”. It sets us free and gives the endurance to move on in this journey.
Blessed is the man and his works, who hear and practice the word of God!
