IMPROVE
And remember, it is a message to obey, not just to listen to. If you don't obey, you are only fooling your self. For if you just listen and don't obey, it is like looking at your face in a mirror but doing nothing to improve your appearance. (James 1:22 & 23 NLT)
This is not a message intended to condemn anyone for not improving or progressing in his or her faith. Rather it is a message to encourage and remind us that we can and will improve if we will apply the Word of God to our lives. The truth is, we cannot help but grow in the Lord if we set ourselves to seek and to obey what He says.
Believe me, as I read the Word, I am continually challenged to come up in many areas. There is so much that the Lord needs to do in my life that there is no time to be trying to figure out the word will fix someone else. My journals as I read the bible are of full of, “Roger do this and that.”
Unfortunately, I believe that we often hear the word and spend so much time shoveling (deciding how it applies to those around us) that all we accomplish is digging a pit for ourselves to fall into. And so God says this is message for us to obey. When we have it perfect, when we have the logs out of our own eyes; then we can go looking at other lives, but only to help them and nothing else.
God compares hearing the word and doing nothing with it, to looking in a mirror and doing nothing to improve our appearance. How often have I looked in the mirror and decided it is good enough for now, only end up in a rush to improve things at the last moment when something came up?
In the same sense, how often do we hear the word and it speaks to hearts, but we decide things are good enough for now? Or maybe we just flat say that we don’t care to obey that particular word. And then something comes up and we find ourselves crumbling in the very area that we could have started obeying long ago.
Well, praise God, that is all in the past! Today is a new day! Today is the day that the Lord has made and we can rejoice and be glad in it. We can declare that from this day forward we will allow the word to improve us. Yes, allow is the operative word in this command from the Lord.
The word is like a mirror, and when we look in it and obey it, it is guaranteed to improve us till we reflect it for the entire world to see. Also, like a mirror, just looking in it won’t complete the task at hand we need to do something. If my eyes see that I need a shave I can’t just walk away and leave it. I need to pick up the razor and use it. If I look in the word and see something that I need to do, then I better do it. Don’t say it won’t help. Don’t say you can’t. Say you will. God is able.