Look and Forget
James 1:22-25 (NLT)
22 Do what God’s word says. Don’t merely listen to it, or you will fool yourselves. 23 If someone listens to God’s word but doesn’t do what it says, he is like a person who looks at his face in a mirror, 24 studies his features, goes away, and immediately forgets what he looks like. 25 However, the person who continues to study God’s perfect laws that make people free and who remains committed to them will be blessed. People like that don’t merely listen and forget; they actually do what God’s laws say.
How often do I look, turn away, and then forget. I once heard it said that Satan is very content for me to go to church on Sunday, hear a powerful sermon, and then pack up my things and head home. Unchanged. Complacent. Satisfied that I checked it off my list.
In this passage we are told not to just listen, but to study and learn of God’s freedom, stick with it – and then go and do what it says.
There is an old Keith Green song called My Eyes Are Dry and it challenges me each day:
My eyes are dry,
My faith is old.
My heart is hard,
My prayers are cold.
And I know how I ought to be,
Alive to You and dead to me.
Forgive me when I fall short, surround me with others to keep me lovingly in check, and help me to do more.
