Teaching the Teachers - Mirror
James 1:22-24
[This is the 2nd lesson of this series]
Michael Jackson has a popular song called Man in the Mirror and it goes like this:
I'm starting with the man in the mirror
I'm asking him to change his ways
And no message could have been any clearer
If you want to make the world a better place
Take a look at yourself, and then make a change
It is an appropriate seque from this excerpt from the Book of James as he was writing to the pioneering Jewish believers in the 1st century.
Scriptures
The Jews know about Scriptures, they have been studying their own for thousands of years before Christ. But their issue has always been that they were mostly reading their sacred books to find fault in other people. Those who have studied and memorized their ancient holy books are the worse of them, their scribes, their teachers of the law and their religious leaders.
Jesus came to change this.
He came to fulfill the law. God's Word shall not return to Him void. The Word shall do that for which He was sent to do.
Thus Jesus said, it is finished.
Mirror
Scripture is a mirror by which the reader is able to see their own reflection. It is a way to see who we really are in the inside. People see our outward appearance but through the Word, we see our heart, the one only God can see.
God's Word
When we read and listen to God's Word it is not for the purpose of pointing our fingers at others, but it is to point them directly at ourselves. God wants us to see our own reflection. And once we do, it will start the process which the lyrics of the song Man in the Mirror is telling us to do (start with the person looking back at us -- our own self).
But we cannot totally change on our own, we can but only for a short while, and only with much effort.
God wants us changed from the inside out. Not by our own strength but by His love for us. And then by putting our trust in Him who is able to do much more than we can and what we can imagine possible.
Remember Jesus already fulfilled the law (and the prophecies). It is done.
We walk in this knowledge and each day we walk with the Spirit of God. Reading and listening to God's Word shows us, we still have much to learn about ourselves. And more importantly, God is telling us to start there (the person looking straight back at us in the mirror). Matthew 7:1-5
When we read and listen to God's Word it is not for the purpose of pointing our fingers at others, but it is to point them directly at ourselves. God wants us to see our own reflection. And once we do, it will start the process which the lyrics of the song Man in the Mirror is telling us to do (start with the person looking back at us -- our own self).
But we cannot totally change on our own, we can but only for a short while, and only with much effort.
God wants us changed from the inside out. Not by our own strength but by His love for us. And then by putting our trust in Him who is able to do much more than we can and what we can imagine possible.
Remember Jesus already fulfilled the law (and the prophecies). It is done.
We walk in this knowledge and each day we walk with the Spirit of God. Reading and listening to God's Word shows us, we still have much to learn about ourselves. And more importantly, God is telling us to start there (the person looking straight back at us in the mirror). Matthew 7:1-5
The Message Paraphrase puts this message this way:
James 1:19-27
Act on What You Hear
Post this at all the intersections, dear friends: Lead with your ears, follow up with your tongue, and let anger straggle along in the rear. God’s righteousness doesn’t grow from human anger. So throw all spoiled virtue and cancerous evil in the garbage. In simple humility, let our gardener, God, landscape you with the Word, making a salvation-garden of your life.
Don’t fool yourself into thinking that you are a listener when you are anything but, letting the Word go in one ear and out the other. Act on what you hear! Those who hear and don’t act are like those who glance in the mirror, walk away, and two minutes later have no idea who they are, what they look like.
But whoever catches a glimpse of the revealed counsel of God—the free life!—even out of the corner of his eye, and sticks with it, is no distracted scatterbrain but a man or woman of action. That person will find delight and affirmation in the action.
Anyone who sets himself up as “religious” by talking a good game is self-deceived. This kind of religion is hot air and only hot air. Real religion, the kind that passes muster before God the Father, is this: Reach out to the homeless and loveless in their plight, and guard against corruption from the godless world.
Image Credit: heartlight.org
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