Thoughts on James 1

I want to invite you guys to join me in my favorite book of the Bible, James. Maybe it’s the dyslexia, maybe it’s the ADD, but 2-1/2 pages? I like James. The guy says it and lands the plane. I don’t know who this Psalm guy is, but he needs to talk to James, you know what I’m saying?

Check this out. In James 1:22, it says: But be doers of the word and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves.  

That’s a weird thing to think about, deceiving yourself.

“Be a doer and not just a hearer, deceiving yourselves.” 

So if all we are is hearers, we could be fooling ourselves. We could be getting around it so much that we think it’s in us, and  it’s just on us. Right?

“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 the mirror.  For he looks at himself and goes away, and at once forgets what he looks like.”

That’s kind of weird to think about, isn’t it? 

Man, when I was in high school, I've always been an artsy type, so I did a lot of drawing in high school. That’s actually what I thought I was going to go in to, and then God zapped me and made me a youth pastor. What I would do is I would draw a lot of portraits.  So, people, like guys in class, and people would always want me to draw them, but after a while I quit.  I wasn’t awesome, but I was decent, but I found that you can't draw somebody because when they look at it, they don't think it looks like them.  You can argue with a drawing all day long, but have you ever gotten in front of your mirror and said, "No, that's not me?  I don't look like that. My nose is way thinner. I don’t have that second chin. I’m really slim. I look great. Forget what the mirror says, I’m outta here.”

As crazy as that sounds, this is what God's talking about right here.  He says the word of God is a mirror, and you can't argue with a mirror.  All the mirror tells you is the truth.

Now, if all we get from God is what a pastor says, we can figure out a way to tell that pastor, “I don't think I agree with your interpretation.  I don’t think you even know my name. You know, you’re kind of snotty when I see you in the hall, so I don’t really have to listen to what you say.” Isn’t that amazing how we can do that? But if you get in the word and you start reading, you gotta deal. “Your eyes are that close together, your nose is huge, and you do have a double chin.” Right? So now, I’ve gotta deal with truth, right? So that's why we’ve gotta stay in the word.

Check out what it says here. It says, “But the one who looks in to the perfect law, the law of liberty,” – that’s pretty cool, law of liberty, rules of freedom. Sounds backwards doesn’t it?  Because that’s what we think. We think backwards. We think God’s holding us back from something, but really he’s saying “Don’t do this because I want to free you to have a good marriage. Don’t’ go here because I want to free you from addiction.” But it’s a law of liberty.

“But the one who looks in to the perfect law, the law of liberty, and perseveres, being not just a hearer who forgets but a doer who acts, he will be blessed in his doing.”

Man, get in the word today. Get in there and soak it in. Like we said yesterday, ask God the big questions: What are you trying to say to me? Not what does this mean to me, but what does it mean, what are you saying in your word? Get you some James today. It’ll be good stuff for you. God bless you guys.