James 1:22-25 | Daily Devotionals

hello everyone welcome to today's devotional out of the book of james let's dive right into the word today we're reading out of james chapter 1 starting in verse 22. but don't just listen to god's word you must do what it says otherwise you're only fooling yourselves for if you listen to the word and don't obey it is like glancing at your face in a mirror you see yourself walk away and forget what you look like but if you look carefully into the perfect law that sets you free and if you do what it says and don't forget what you heard then god will bless you for doing it amen okay what is james saying here um i'm sure you have a mirror in your house you probably have several there's mirrors in our cars there's mirrors everywhere we can even use our phones as a mirror use that front camera why why are we surrounded by mirrors well it's because without them we don't have perspective on what we look like right we can't see ourselves clearly without using a mirror and now look this is this is a true story this really happened to me today you can see my shirt a little wrinkle right here i didn't see it at home do you know why because i put on this shirt and didn't look in the mirror before i left and it was too late to do anything about it i failed to take into account how i would look to other people because i didn't look at a mirror now if we don't look at our mirrors we don't know if our hair is out of place we got food in our teeth we don't know if you know we missed a spot shaving or if our makeup is out of place or our shirt has a wrinkle in it we need these things to help us see ourselves clearly and james says that god's word is just like a mirror for our souls we can go through our lives not realizing that our attitudes are bad not realizing that the way we treat people is inappropriate uh maybe we don't realize that how we relate to our spouse or talk to our kids or handle our finances we don't know those things are out of line or are not what god wants for us if we don't take time to look into the mirror of his word it shows us very clearly exactly what's out of place exactly what could be better exactly what means adjusting now james here isn't talking about people who never look into god's word he's talking to people who look into god's word but fail to use that information in a way that's going to bring transformation to their lives he says it's like looking in the mirror and you can see oh man i gotta fix this i gotta fix my hair i gotta you know fix the makeup or ooh get some floss and get that out of my teeth or maybe change my shirt or you know my socks don't match or whatever we look and we see what we're really like and then we fail to do anything about it we read god's word and we see god clearly says how we're supposed to handle our money god's word clearly says how we're supposed to date and behave in marriage how we're supposed to raise our kids how we're supposed to spend our time and we see these things lined out in scripture we hear it preached on sundays and wednesdays but do we really change based on what we heard i know for me i've heard a lot of sermons grew up in church work at a church i've heard a lot of preaching in my life there have been many times where i hear the word of god and i say oh man that sounds great somebody should try that you know walk out the door and there's no change i've looked in the mirror i've seen where i come up short and i failed to do anything about it james warns us here if we live like that we're fooling ourselves and that should give every one of us pause there is a way to read god's word that leaves you more deceived than you were before let me say that again there is a way to read and study the word of god that leads to you being deceived rather than you getting clarity from the lord what is that way that way is when i read it i feel good about myself because i did the christian godly thing i was supposed to do today but what i read has no impact on the way i live my life the bible says that that leads to self-deception that we think we're good we feel good about who we are as people but the reality is god's word is no longer bringing transformation to our behavior no longer bringing transformation to the way we live our lives we've seen the reflection but we haven't done anything about it now what are we supposed to do here how do we deal with this danger of not uh allowing god's word to have that effect on our lives i think the only thing that we can do is make sure that we're coupling our time in god's word with timing god's presence you know i think you know when especially if you try to read your bible in the mornings like i do um things are chaotic i've got four kids they all have to get dressed i'll have to get out the door onto the bus mornings can be really full really busy and if i don't get up early enough then it just kind of man the shuffle and the hustle and the bustle of the morning reading my bible can turn into just something i check off the list right brush teeth comb hair kids on bus read bible and end up reading the bible the same way i would read a newspaper the same way i would read through my uh the feed on my phone or on social media it just becomes something i do to say that i did it i think the only way to avoid being deceived is to slow down a little bit make sure we have enough time so that our bible reading time isn't just another thing we check off the list but rather it's a meditative moment where i can spend time not just reading but talking to god about what i've read because i need the holy spirit to help me apply these things to my life to help me see how i'm coming up short and that's the great thing about this mirror of god's word it doesn't just show me how i come up short it also shows me who jesus is and how he can continue to transform my life just by spending time with him the law and the word of god does show me my shortcomings that's true and you know the temptation can be to i don't believe that that's not really what i'm like or the bible's not true or whatever but if i want to grow and change it's going to be more than just me looking at god's word it's going to be allowing god's word to show me not just myself but christ help me fall more in love with jesus help me spend more time with jesus help me give myself over to him right we cannot self-improve we can't just try harder to be more obedient to god's word but we can do is get into the presence of jesus and allow the word of god to transform us by the power of the holy spirit amen let's pray father we love you we thank you for your word thank you for the transforming power of your word i pray that none of us would be deceived today in jesus name but we would spend time with you so that what we read can bring about real transformation in our lives help us not to be distracted help us not to be rushed when we come into your presence god but to give you and us all the time that's needed for actual change to take place when we get in your word we love you we praise you in jesus name amen

Channel: Healing Place Church

Views: 3,223

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Id: WuSuTyraUzc

Length: 8min 26sec (506 seconds)

Published: Mon Oct 12 2020