Let the Word Be Your Mirror
I’ve begged God to show me change. Being a toddler of three in Christ now, I’ve struggled to grow in some areas, doubted my salvation, and wrestled with my own view of God.
I’ve mortified my flesh only to watch it come back and haunt me with the sin I hate. I saw God as purely a judge and had no concept of His abounding grace and mercy. My repentance was slow and steady, and although I struggled, I know now that His Spirit was guiding me all along the way.
Taking biblical self-examinations can be harrowing and difficult. A book like James humbles us well as believers, showing us our desperate need to cling to the cross even more as we grow in our walks with Jesus. At this particular stage in my walk, I look back and am starting to see clearly the tremendous works God has done to pull me out of the world and save me from my sin, and I praise Him!
There is fruit! There are works of His hand on my life, and I encourage you to see the fruits He has produced in your life as well! His work through us brings us much comfort and joy. But this race has only just begun for me, and as I compare myself to the following Scripture, holy fear enters my heart.
“But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves. For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man who looks intently at his natural face in a mirror. For he looks at himself and goes away and at once forgets what he was like. 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.” James 1:22-24
It’s hard to forget where I came from, and I think that’s true for all of us. Comparing myself to where I came from is easy. But now at this current stage, this wisdom lays me low. I feel like Isaiah, realizing his own unclean lips before the holy God. I have failed to live out the word in its fullness, even today, and it grieves me, just as it grieves the Spirit when I sin. In the past, I would despair over the fact that I can never live out the word in its fullness.
My faith was weak because it was based on my performance. But now I realize: there can be no fruit and no performance without first joying in who God is and what He has done.
“But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ — by grace you have been saved — and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.” Ephesians 2:4-7
Christians struggle against sin, hating that they fall into it. But knowing it’s Christ's sacrifice and God’s grace that has saved us is the firm foundation to a life of doing the word. I long to build my house on the solid rock of Christ, and not the shifting sands of my own performance. I long to obey Him, though I struggle. He delights in saving us, and delights in being the hope of many who love Him. I love God, and would be nowhere without Him.
I love that James calls God’s law the law of liberty: the law convicts us of sin and brings them to our attention, so by turning back to God in hopes of restoration, our joy and hope is found in Him alone, and we long to obey His statutes and do the word as a result. This alone is freedom. His law and grace are true liberty, and He has freed us from eternally afflicted fates unto eternal life to glorify His wonderful name.
I pray that we would compare ourselves to Scripture, and see if our lives line up. And when we notice cracks in our armor and blots on our shirt, I pray that we do not despair, but run more fervently to the cross to receive the grace that God has freely given. We persevere and fix those problems with joy in our hearts, knowing it’s by His power alone that we put to death our sinful flesh, and receive His abounding grace and mercy.
~ Alex Nicholson serves as Music Director and Social Media Coordinator LIFE Fellowship