James told us to be doers and not just hearers. This daily devotion looks at what we are to do and how it applies to salvation.
Nuggets
- We are to look at the law, which gives us God’s character, and imitate it to receive blessings
- God wants a relationship with us, not a ritual.
Devotions in Living Out Our Faith series
James had just talked about how the Word of God should be used as a reflection to see Who God is and who we need to be. We should use it as a mirror that we do more than just gaze at.
James 1: 25 tells us what specifically we are to be gazing at.
Let's Put It into Context
Here is a running list of nuggets for the series.
The Perfect Law of Liberty
“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” (Jas. 1: 25 ESV)
We are to look at the law, which gives us God’s character, and imitate it to receive blessings.
James had just used an analogy of looking in a mirror to see God. Spurgeon clarified that we are looking at a glass mirror. We are looking at God’s laws and commandments.
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Jesus said that those laws and commandments are summed up by the two greatest commandments. “‘And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ The second is this: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these” (Mk. 12: 30-31 ESV).
We are to obey the laws and commandments as Jesus has shown us how.
Glossary
So, if we are to “… love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength” (Mk. 12: 30 ESV), then we are to bury ourselves in His Word with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength. This is how we will know it and how it will change our character.
And yes, it is law. We are commanded to obey it.
It is not a suggestion. It is not something from which we can pick and choose what to follow.
Why do we follow it? It is the perfect law.
Nothing has to be added to it. It has supreme authority.
God’s law is what sets us free.
Without Christ, we are in bondage to sin. Sin is not believing that Jesus is our Savior to save us from our actions by humans that disobey God and break one of His reasonable, holy, and righteous laws and commandments, goes against a purpose He has for us, or follows Satan’s promptings.
Punshon made a good observation. He wrote that “it has been well observed that the highest liberty is a self-imposed restraint.”
God isn’t a dictator. Yes, He commands us to obey His laws and commandments. He doesn’t force us to do that.
It is our choice. It’s called free will. Free will is the ability within us to make decisions, which determine actions that produce character.
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If God commands us to obey His law (which He does) and we choose not to, we will suffer judgment. It may be in this lifetime. It may be in the next.
We have to pay attention to what we hear. It can’t go in one ear and out the other.
We have to make it a major part of our lives.
That is because it is a major part. It is the regeneration of our heart. Regeneration is being changed from spiritually dead to spiritually alive and the internal new birth and requickening that God brings about through the work of the Holy Spirit.
We have to keep looking at the law so that we do not forget.
The doing part is being fully committed to the submission part.
We are blessed because we gain salvation. Blessedness means we have been perfected.
For us, the perfection means maturity. For God, it really does mean 100% of the time perfect.
We who look in the looking glass to see the Word have two choices. We can either walk away or allow the Word to change us to be like God.
The choice is ours.
If We Think We Are Religious
“If anyone thinks he is religious and does not bridle his tongue but deceives his heart, this person’s religion is worthless. Religion that is pure and undefiled before God the Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unstained from the world” (Jas. 1: 26-27 ESV)
God wants a relationship with us, not a ritual.
First off, I have to play Dictionary Chick. We have to know what James was talking out when he said religion or religious.
Thomas helped us out with that. He wrote, “The word ‘religious,’ here, does not mean the entire religious life — the inner experience and the outward manifestation of religion — but only the outward expression of it.”
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Hmmm. Is that what the verse is really saying?
I read it to say, “If anyone has an outside religion (if he thinks he is religious) and doesn’t have the inside relationship with God (doesn’t bridle the tongue and deceives the heart), our religion is worthless.
But then, Thomas went on to say something else that I am going to have to process. He wrote, “We are as Christians what priests in the sanctuary before the congregations profess to be — we are performing the holy rites, and thus [symbolizing] the faith and uttering the worship of Christ. Our ritual is our life. That life is the performance of religious rites which [symbolize] our faith to the world, and utter our worship to God.”
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Hmmm. I like that.
We are priests. “But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light” (I Pet. 2: 9 ESV)
We are “on display,” living out for the world to see what a disciple looks like.
Hopefully, we are giving an accurate picture.
I can see where Thomas would say that our ritual is our life. We live our lives day in and day out.
Our faith must be shown in how we live our lives. Our ritual is based on our faith.
If it doesn’t have an inward component, we are deceiving ourselves. We just have a genuine submissive relationship with God.
At first, I was kind of kicking at verse 27. But then I realized I was doing a little bit of selective reading.
I was kicking back at the only thing James said was “… visit orphans and widows in their affliction …” (Jas. 1: 27 ESV). But I don’t think he was saying that is the only way.
What I think he was going for was practical ways to live out the greatest commandments. Once again — “‘And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ The second is this: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these” (Mk. 12: 30-31 ESV).
The way we show that we love God is to follow His laws and commandments. The way we show love to others is we help them when they need us.
Making the Connections #1
Barr made a great observation. He wrote, “It is observable that he says nothing of believing, and speaks only of doing. Nor was it necessary that he should. The ‘doer of the work’ must, in the first instance, be a believer of the Word.”
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Being a good person isn’t going to cut it. Loving others isn’t going to cut it if we don’t also love God.
Belief in God is a given.
Making the Connections #2
I loved what Robins had to say. He wrote, “It is a paradox, and yet it is perfectly true, that man is not justified by works, and yet that man is not justified without works.”
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Justification is the act through the merits of Christ that makes us free from sin because we are following God’s moral laws.
Man is not freed from sin by works, but man is not freed from sin without them.
James had just told us “But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves” (Jas. 1: 22 ESV).
Man is not freed from sin by just hearing the Word. Man is freed from sin by ABCDing.
The ABC part is salvation. The D part is working out our salvation.
We can’t earn salvation. It is a gift of God.
But we can’t change our character unless we navigate the Sanctification Road. Sanctification is the transformation of mind, body, and soul, which begins with regeneration; gradually changes our nature and morals through the promptings of the Holy Spirit; and ends with perfected state of spiritual wholeness or completeness.
We work out our salvation through showing obedience to God and growing our faith.
How Do We Apply This?
- Take heed of God’s perfect law and follow it.
- Make God’s laws a rule of our lives determining our conduct.
- Study the laws and commandments to ensure we know what God is wanting from us.
- Remember what we have learned about the laws and commandments.
- Continuously obey them.
- Continually look at the law so we do not forget.
- Continually exercise our spiritual graces.
- Grow our faith through navigating the Sanctification Road
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Father God. Your law could not bring us salvation. It does, however, show us Your character. Help us to grow our faith and perfect us by keeping Your laws. Amen.
What do you think?
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