The inspection of the mirror
"And remember it is a message to obey and not just to listen to. If you dont obey you are only fooling around. For if you just listen and dont obey, it is like looking at your face in a mirror but doing nothing to improve your appearance. You see yourself, walk away and forget what you look like."
James 1:22-24
James like using little proverbs such as this one looking in the mirror but not doing anything to change your appearance. This couple of verses help us to unpack what the previous verse has said. It is also gives us a bit of a break by using an everyday experence to get the point accross.
Change has to happen and the questions we often ask:
What do I look like?
Having observed, how can I change to this or that?
Prayer: Lord we pray that you change us to reflect you more and more as we await your second coming.
5 comments:
These posts on James are interesting.
You ask: "how can I change to this or that?"
Is it we who change ourselves, or God who changes us, or is it a partnership? Can we in fact change ourselves, or only consent to (or refuse) His changing of us?
By the way, I wanted to comment on your other blog, but you only allow people with a google account to do so. Why the different styrategy for the two blogs?
Dinsy, thanks for letting me know. Comments on the new blog LWLW had been set to the default setting (just for registered users only). Commments on the other blog are now open for discussion. Thanks for your comments, I shall reply to these shortly.
I would think it is a partnership as God changes us according to our will but humanly looking at it we surrender to his will as he is changing us.
How do you view it?
Pretty much the same as you, but I think that view tends to be out of line with mainstream evangelical preaching these days, which seems to be more about doing: if you want to be closer to God, read the bible more, pray more, give more, serve more, get rid of the bad things in your life so God can take over more. You know, the 40 day programs, 7 steps, christian de-tox kind of thing.
Personally I get tired of hearing about it, because it implies "if I do this, then God will have to do that" which is paganism using christian formulae.
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