Pure Religion - James 1:26-27

My kids recently found an old children's book of mine that explains how to do some simple magic tricks. They decided to perform a magic show and invited us adults to attend. We watched as they showed us a dollar bill with George Washington right side up, folded the bill, unfolded it and showed us George Washington was now upside down. They did a couple of other tricks, but at no point in time did they deliver an incantation and actually perform magic. The key to magic tricks is not magic. The key is deception. The magician is not deceived. He is trying to deceive the people watching. In James 1:26, however, we see a person who has deceived himself.

Think about the Pharisees with me. These are the religious leaders of the day. They uphold the law (and more) and seek to live their lives before men in the most rigid standards they can. They teach men the outward conformity to the law. They teach men how to look religious. Now James comes and tells the believers that if a person seems to be religious but has an unbridled tongue, that person's religion is vain -- it is empty. Have you ever seen those play bottles for doll babies? From the outside they look full. Then you turn them over and they empty even though nothing comes out of the bottle. These religious people with unbridled tongues are just that. They look full of all the "right things," but the truth is, they're empty. The unbridled tongue they display is unbridled in sin, it speaks of things it ought not (Titus 1:10-11), and it is unbridled in excess, it speaks too much (Proverbs 10:19). This unbridled tongue is a sure evidence of an empty religion.

James 1:26 also tells us that this person has deceived his own heart. Once again think of the Pharisees with me. Most of them probably thought they would stand righteous before God one day. After all, hadn't they kept all of the commandments? Yet, it was their unbridled tongue that showed their heart. Read Matthew 12:23-37. The Pharisees have accused Jesus of being in league with Satan. How unbridled can you get? Pay attention to Matthew 12:34. This is a very familiar verse to us, but think about how closely the tongue and the heart are tied together. The tongue reveals all that is in the heart. In the very outwardly religious Pharisees, the tongue revealed a heart void of the understanding of God. It seems that a person who has a religious exterior and an unbridled tongue could very well be unsaved. This person has an unregenerate heart.

I don't want to close all doors there though. There are some who are simply carnal Christians. In 1 Corinthians 3:1 Paul is telling the Corinthian believers that they are carnal, "babes in Christ." They are indeed "in Christ." They have Christ, but they haven't built anything of lasting value on that foundation. Further down in the chapter in 1 Corinthians 3:11-15 we see that we can have the foundation of Christ but still be laying up no treasures in Heaven. This person who seems to be religious but lacks self-control in her tongue could simply be revealing a lack of growth. The person has faith but has not added virtue (2 Peter 1:5-8). And still, this person's religion (outward show) is empty. There is no reward in empty labor.

Then in James 1:27 we see the contrast. Pure religion is seen in the merciful and humble acts of the doer. The great show is not where we see a truly pious woman. True piety is seen in the servant. Pure religion is not evidenced only in visiting the fatherless and widows in their affliction, but it is in these merciful acts that we see the embodiment of the pure, outward focus of religion. Also, the one who is religious keeps himself unspotted from the world. To keep oneself is to have a jealous watchfulness. We are jealous to keep pure. We are keeping our hearts with all diligence (Proverbs r4:23). We are learning to number our days so we may apply ourselves to wisdom (Psalm 90:12).

I have talked to several people recently who have expressed that growing up they felt like they had a checklist to gauge their Christianity by. If they did all those things on that checklist, things like wearing the right clothes, going the right places, talking about the right things, if they did all these things then they were spiritual. When they grew up, however, they realized that Christianity was more than external conformity. Christianity was a change of heart and thinking. That change of heart and thinking shows up in the externals. It shows up in the things I wear, the places I go and the things I talk about. But the change is first in an inward conformity to Christ not a conformity to an external standard (Romans 8:29). We can't live our lives by a checklist to see if we're OK. This passage in James points to that. James has just gotten done talking about being a doer of the Word and not just a hearer. Then he pauses to remind us that this doing does not begin with our hands, but it begins with our heart.

I can't leave this without asking where are you? Consider what you are conformed to. Are you ruled by an exterior standard in your life or is your exterior ruled by a heart conformed to Christ?

Devotional Help

I really enjoy and recommend books by Elizabeth George. In one of her books (sorry, I can't remember which one), she related a devotional help that was useful for her. She referred to it as her Spiritual Temperature chart. Every day that she had her devotions she colored in that day's date. As she looked back, she viewed the chart as a sort of thermometer. If she missed a lot of days she could see that her chart looked like chicken pox. When she was doing well, she could see the steady "temperature" rising. I am posting a pdf of a chart I made based off the one she had available in her book. I hope it will be a help to you.

Bible Reading Chart

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Fun in the Kitchen

When the weather outside is frightful . . .



Inside can be very delightful . . .

Welcome, Welcome!

Here we are at a new website! Also, praise the Lord He has allowed us to get a second used computer that I can use as my very own! This will help facilitate my blog writing as Dave has had our one computer in great demand over the last couple of months. I hope to be able to post often and still look forward to hearing from you!

Action is the Key - James 1:22-25

The other day my 7-year-old was singing a song called "Obedience." One phrase in the song is, "Action is the key, do it immediately." She then asked me why the song said that action was the key. My reply was to tell her the parable of the two sons found in Matthew 21:28-31. You probably remember how Jesus told of the father who went to his first son and told him to go work in the vineyard. The son replied no, but later repented and went and worked. Then the father went to the second son and told him to work in the
vineyard. This son said he would, but then he never went. Jesus then asked which son did the will of his father? Which son obeyed? Obviously the first son is the one who obeyed. Action is the key.

Here in James we see another example of action being the key. In verse 19 we are told to be "swift to hear." In verse 21 we have the admonition to humbly receive the Word of God. In verse 22 we see, "But be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves." It is not enough just to listen. It is not enough to simply receive the Word. We must do what we have received. We can take the Word of God and say, "Yes, that's exactly what I need." Then we go and do what we want to anyway. We may have every intention of doing what it says, but then something comes up and we're busy or we think another way might be better this time. It all amounts to the same thing -- we are deceiving ourselves. Certainly, the listening and receiving have to take place or we will not know what the will of the Father is. However, if we think we are spiritual because we read the Word, meditate on the Word and even memorize the Word, but we put no feet to what we learn, we are not doing the will of our Father.

Verses 23-24 state, "For if any be a hearer of the word, and not a doer, he is like unto a man beholding his natural face in a glass: For he beholdeth himself, and goeth his way, and straightway forgetteth what manner of man he was." I have the knowledge of what I look like. I've gotten up and seen that my hair is tangled up in a ball on the side of my head. I am grieved by it. I know that I don't want to go out looking as I do. Then I look at the time. I hurry off to go get the kids breakfast and soon get busy in my day. In the process I completely forget that I am walking around with a tangled mass of hair on the side of my head. I can do the same thing with the Word of God. I look. I see that my tongue is out of control and I need to use my tongue to edify and minister grace to the hearer. I am grieved by the picture that I see of myself. Then I leave. I get busy. I forget what I have seen and I never do anything to fix the problems.

Verse 25 gives the contrast though, "But whoso looketh into the perfect law of liberty, and continueth therein, he being not a forgetful hearer, but a doer of the work, this man shall be blessed in his deed." The words in James 1:25, "looketh into," have a stronger connotation than the word "beholdeth" in verse 24. Beholding is more like just seeing the big picture. Looking into has the idea of examining closely. Taking in the minutiae and examining it thoroughly. I like the show CSI. The way the investigators examine a crime scene is so detailed that they find the individual hairs and trace evidence left behind. We are to examine with that type of vigilance. Not content with just seeing if anything jumps out at me, but examining so closely that the picture becomes obvious.

Also, here in verse 25 we see our "mirror." It is the "perfect law of liberty." In Christ we have an amazing liberty that was unknown under the law. The law was a constant schoolmaster reminding the people of their sinful condition. Galatians 3:24-25 states, "Wherefore the law was our schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ, that we might be justified by faith. But after that faith is come, we are no longer under a schoolmaster." It's like that child who sits under his teacher learning and then matures to go out in freedom into the world. No longer is he sitting under the particular instructions of his teacher. We, not being under the law, are no longer sitting under the particular instructions of our Teacher. We don't have to worry about pork or beef, whether we are wearing mixed fibers, or if we are sprinkling whatever just right. In this we have great liberty.

And yet the responsibility is greater. Before, all that child had to do was obey his teacher and he was good. When he becomes a man, he has to work and provide, he has to live his life in accordance to what he has been taught. The same with us. Under the law of liberty we have a higher standard. The issues at stake now are matters of the heart. We cannot think we can do just as the Pharisees and fulfill the letter of the law and be pleasing to God. The issues are not outward conformity to an external standard, the issue is inward conformity to Christ. 2 Corinthians 3:17-18 state, "Now the Lord is that Spirit: and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty. But we all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord." We now have a divine, incarnate example to follow. We are to be conformed to the image of Christ.

What is the result of examining and continuing in the will of our Father? "This man shall be blessed in his deed." We are like the wise man who built his house on a rock. Our actions are founded on the Solid Rock, and in that we are solid and not like the double minded man from James 1:8. Our deeds are blessed because the authority for them is found in Christ, not ourselves. Then we can know we are abiding in Christ.

I am reminded of an account I heard of a man who had Biblical knowledge that far surpassed that of many others. He could quote books of the Bible. He also was an adulterer. He would drive to meet his lover while quoting passages of the Bible. He would pray and ask God to help him. A wise person later told him that was not the time for quoting Scripture, it was the time for turning the wheel. While our decisions may not all be as dramatic, I know I am often confronted with the knowledge of what I ought to be doing and what I am actually doing. Ladies, we cannot be content to live our lives listening. We cannot be content with merely gleaning knowledge. We have to be women of action who put to good use those things which we learn in the Word of God.

Those Dirty Clothes - James 1:21

My husband and I enjoy a show on the Discovery channel called "Dirty Jobs." Mike Rowe, the host, goes every show to new places and new dirty jobs. The jobs are as varied as can be imagined, with many different skill levels for each position. There is one common theme though, the people who perform these jobs (and film Mike doing these jobs) get dirty. One particular show, the job was so filthy and disgusting that Mike commented that no one on the crew wanted to even talk after the show was done. They just all wanted to get back to their hotel rooms and wash away as much of the filth as possible from their bodies.

James 1:21 states, "Wherefore lay apart all filthiness and superfluity of naughtiness, and receive with meekness the engrafted word, which is able to save your souls."

Be Quiet and Listen!: James 1:19-20

I have three children. Each of them is unique. Even when they were babies their personalities were showing themselves evident. For instance. My oldest liked her independence as a baby. She didn't like to be held and cuddled. She cried when I tried. She was happiest sitting somewhere where she could observe and laugh, but not have her personal bubble invaded. My middle one liked to be cuddled. She was still a very happy baby. She just liked Mommy more and liked to be held and loved on. Then came my youngest. No more happy baby. To his credit, there was something wrong with his digestive system that was never figured out. He was an unhappy baby though. He screamed. A lot. I once figured that he screamed about eight hours a day besides some other more normal crying. He did this for about four months. I think it's because of this early exercise of his lungs that he has an amazing ability even now to be unbelievably loud. On top of that he likes to talk. He is a sweet, loving hearted, generous little boy who just has a hard time listening. Therefore, in an attempt to teach him to pay attention to what was coming out of his mouth, I recently taught him James 1:19, "Wherefore, my beloved brethren, let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath." The verse is not just good for a five-year-old. I find that its truth is frequently a good reminder to me.

We began our study in James contemplating that this book is about the evidences of our faith. We've seen the evidence of our faith in trials. How we count it all joy when we are tried because we know that through the trial we are becoming more like Christ. We are being tested and are being made stronger. Also, we've seen the origins of sin and the wonderful, constant nature of our God. Then we come to James 1:19 which starts out, "Wherefore." You've probably heard the saying, "When you see a 'therefore' in the Bible look back and see what it's 'there for.'" Same thing with 'wherefores.' You look back and see what the author is referring to. So, because we know the end product of our trials. Because we know that sin comes from within. Because we know that God is not the author of evil and has an unchanging nature. Because of all that we've looked at we have three responses. (On a quick side note, don't you love how the author reiterates his love of God's people? He calls the reader "beloved brethren." It's much better than my title which just has the point.)

Our first response according to verse 19 is to be, "swift to hear." Listening seems to have become a lost art. Even when we are talking to someone, too often we are more concerned with framing our reply than with listening to what the other person has to say. Other times we just simply refuse to listen to someone. We have a grievance that is like that splinter in our finger. It's annoying, and it hurts. Then we often become closed, especially to the person who we perceive is at fault in our grievance, and we forget to listen. We even forget to listen to the voice of God. We approach the Word of God with a set idea or preconceived notion and forget to listen to what is really written there. God does not change. The Word of God does not change. The love of God does not change. The Bible is just as powerful today as it was centuries ago. Psalm 46:10 states, "Be still, and know that I am God: I will be exalted among the heathen, I will be exalted in the earth." We are very familiar with the beginning of that verse. It is interesting to see though that the end of our being still is God's exaltation. Psalm 4:4 also states, "Stand in awe, and sin not: commune with your own heart upon your bed, and be still. Selah." When we are still we are more apt to listen. To realize that I don't have all the answers. To realize that I need instruction too. To realize that it's not all about me. Listen.

Then we have the natural outflow of listening in the next response. We are to be "slow to speak." If we really listen, then our speaking will already decrease. This response is two fold. We are to decrease the amount of words we speak, and we are to be careful in what words we do say. Consider Proverbs 10:19, "In the multitude of words there wanteth not sin: but he that refraineth his lips is wise." The verse is stating that with lots of words you have sin. Therefore, the person who keeps his mouth closed is wise. Be careful how much you talk. Silence is not a bad thing. Then look at Proverbs 18:21 with me, "Death and life are in the power of the tongue: and they that love it shall eat the fruit thereof." The tongue has power to death or life, and we see that we are judged according to how we use our tongue. "And they that love it" is speaking to how we love to use our tongue, how we consistently speak. An evil man may use his tongue for good sometime. But the things he habitually says, the things he loves to speak, are evil. He will be judged according to how he loves to speak. A good man may use his tongue for death some time. But it is how he loves to speak, how he habitually speaks, that he will be judged on. Why so much importance on what we say? In Matthew 12:34 Jesus is rebuking the Pharisees, and He tells them, "Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh." Our words reveal what is in our heart.

Then thirdly, we should be, "slow to wrath." Wrath -- anger. How quick we are to defend our position. To have an angry zeal for even what we would say is right. What if someone is taking our good and persecuting us for that good? Are we supposed to be zealous is showing them their error and turning them to the right? Are we to be angry at the way we are being misunderstood? Earlier in James we were told to "count it all joy." Matthew 5 tells us we are blessed -- exuberantly happy -- when people persecute us for righteousness sake because our reward is great in Heaven. When I am quickly angry, it is most often because I have only myself in view. I am concerned first with my needs and how they are being met. Even Christ was not quickly angry. Think about the favorite example of Christ running out the money changers from the temple in John 2:13-17. Jesus didn't just go into the temple and see the money changers and then blow His top. He saw the problem, was angry at the sin, and then thought of the proper way to deal with this sin. He stopped and made a small whip. Then he cleaned out the temple. I don't think He even approached this as a deranged madman. Think of a cowboy on his horse driving the herd of cattle in the direction he wants them to go. He is not out of control. He may raise his voice. He may crack his whip. Yet he always has a very specific purpose in every move he makes. He is driving the cattle where he wants them. Jesus had a very purposefully drove the money changers where he wanted them. We see Jesus' control throughout this matter as when He is done turning over the tables and pouring out the money, the Jews haven't called the Roman guards in to arrest this lunatic. They ask Jesus for a sign. They basically ask Jesus to verify His authority for acting in such a way. The best example that we have of anger is the Bible is very controlled. And then think of how many times we have recorded a response of anger from Jesus. Very few, huh. Be slow to anger.

Another reason to be slow to anger is found in verse 20, "For the wrath of man worketh not the righteousness of God." As a young parent, this verse was very convicting to me. The little hoodlums would get on my nerves and I would want to be short and snippy with them. I was letting my anger control my words instead of letting the Holy Spirit control my words. However, what I most want for my children is that they grow to be adults who love God. Who seek to glorify Him with their whole lives. I want the righteousness of God to shine forth in their lives. This verse convicted me because I saw that my anger would not take them to that place of obedience to God. Think about the other people in your life. Married ladies, think about your husband. You have the opportunity of knowing your husband better than any one else. You know first hand his weaknesses and besetting sin. You pray for him and encourage him, and sometimes you just want to shake him. Are you in the habit of letting him feel the edge of your tongue? Do you apply your anger to him hoping he comes to his senses and straightens up? Your anger does not produce in him the righteousness of God. Your anger will not help him to be more Christlike. Read 1 Peter 3:1-6. Peter was not just talking to women whose husbands were unsaved. This applies to women who are married to men who are saved and simply not living in all areas as they should. It's not our lectures or hurts or anger that is going to bring that husband back, it's our "chaste conversation coupled with fear" (1 Peter 3:2). It's your righteous lifestyle coupled with your proper respect for your husband (Ephesians 5:33).

All these practical responses. Being quick to listen, being slow to speak, and being slow to anger. Is it easy? No. Is it impossible? "With God all things are possible" (Matthew 19:26).