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Plainly Speaking
with Karl J. Forehand
Don’t
Fake Yourself Out – Part 2
(Doing the Word)
(James 1:22-25)
by
Karl J. Forehand
But prove yourselves doers of the word, and not merely hearers who delude
themselves. For if anyone is a hearer
of the word and not a doer, he is like a man who looks at his natural face in
a mirror; for once he has looked at
himself and gone away, he has immediately forgotten what kind of person he
was. But one who looks intently at
the perfect law, the law of liberty, and abides by it, not having become a
forgetful hearer but an effectual doer, this man shall be blessed in what he
does. (James 1:22-25)
When we hear
an admonition to be “doers,” we have to avoid the inclination to simply
spring into action. Simply “doing”
something doesn’t necessarily solve the problem. We may the wrong thing.
We may do the right things the wrong way. Then what does it mean to be a doer of the Word,? This passage stresses one thing and
implies two more that are seen elsewhere in Scripture. These things are requirements to properly
“doing” the Word.
1. We must
start with examination
Someone once said, “The unexamined life is not worth
living.” We have to learn to avoid
the temptation to glance at our spiritual life. Notice the example given refers to men. It says the one who doesn’t pay attention
is life a man who glances at a physical mirror. Men tend to look quickly at a mirror,
while most women pay attention to what they see.
God’s word is
revealing. Spiritually, men and women
have a tendency to quickly look at the Word and what it reveals about
ourselves, then we quickly move on to something else. We have to ask: “is this me? Is part of
this me? Could this be me?” This passage stresses that we should “look
intently” into God’s Word to see what it reveals about us.
How upset
would you be if the doctor just glanced at you and said, “I know what is
wrong with her?” You pay to see the
doctor, because He knows how to examine for physical illness. The trouble with our spiritual lives is
that we don’t want to go see the doctor.
When our
spiritual condition is revealed, we can’t forget what we see. If some of us were as creative with our
spiritual looks as we are with our vision of our spiritual condition, it
would be frightening to walk down the street. We often glance at our spiritual condition, then we begin
talking and justifying and making excuses.
We eventually convince ourselves that we are “not that bad.” We forget what we actually saw.
In conjunction
with our selective amnesia, we then forget what we should do. We have done nothing if we have simply
identified the problem. We do need to
identify the problem, but that is not the end. We have also not completed the assignment if we have identified
a solution. Imagine you are about to
board a plane and you notice the wing is cracked badly and hanging loosely
from the plane. When you inquire, the
pilot says, “That’s okay, we have identified that problem and even know how
to fix it.”
We are similar
when we say things like:
“I know I should do daily devotions.”
“I
know I should stop gossiping.”
“I
know I should put away that pet sin.”
“I
know I need to get serious about a personal ministry.”
“I
know I should be less critical and more loving.”
So what?! Everyone knows they should do those
things. Before you boarded the plane,
you would say, “Listen buddy, we’re not taking off until you fix that wing
that is falling off.” We have to stop
saying things like:
“I’m
just like that.”
“I
can’t change.”
That truth is
that you have chosen not to change.
If you really wanted to change, you would let God change you. What does God do when I let Him examine me
and I pay attention to what He says.
One thing God wants to do is:
2. Restoration
After the examination, it is important that we let God
fix it. This passage mentions an
interesting term, the Law of Liberty.
The law implies a standard and a result, namely freedom or liberty. The trouble we have with a law of liberty
is that we can’t get past the requirements.
This is why we need the blood of Christ – to remove the guilt. We also need the water of the Word to
wash away our daily defilement. We
need restoration because we daily don’t achieve attainment of the law.
Psalm 51 is
an excellent prayer for restoration – read it now.
Our God is not a band-aid God -- He is a restoring God.
He is not a
surgery God – He is a recreating God.
He is not a
medical God – He is a miracle God.
He is not a
fickle God -- He is a reconciling God
that will not give up on you.
The Bible is
about a relationship initiated by God – a relationship broken by man – a
relationship restored by God. God is
not going to give up on restoring you.
We say things like:
“I’m
too far gone”
“My
spouse is too messed up...”
“In my
situation, I don’t see how it could be restored…”
“In my
town, it could never happen.”
There is a
very theological word for those statements – BALONEY!! God wants to restore you, no matter what
you situation or excuses are.
Ultimately God wants to move you to:
3.
Transformation
Consider the
following verses:
But we all, with unveiled face beholding as in a mirror the glory of the
Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory,
just as from the Lord, the Spirit.
(II Corinthians 3:18)
“And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed
by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what the will of God is,
that which is good and acceptable and perfect.” (Romans 12:2)
God ultimately wants to change your mind about your sin. My kids love the mud. It takes them less that a few minutes to
find a mud puddle and be covered.
When they come in the house, my wife makes them hose off first. After they are clean, my purpose in life
is to change their mind about jumping in the puddle the next time. God wants to change our mind about
sin. He not only wants to cleans us
of the sin, but He wants to change our mind about committing the sin again –
that is transformation.
We have to let
God examine – then God can restore us – ultimately, He can transform our
lives.
Karl
J. Forehand, 2002
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