James 1:19-27

19 Know this, my beloved brothers: let every person be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger;

20 for the anger of man does not produce the righteousness of God. 21 Therefore put away all filthiness and rampant wickedness and receive with meekness the implanted word, which is able to save your souls.

22 But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves. 23 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. 24 For he looks at himself and goes away and at once forgets what he was like. 25 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.

26 If anyone thinks he is religious and does not bridle his tongue but deceives his heart, this person's religion is worthless. 27 Religion that is pure and undefiled before God the Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unstained from the world.

These verses really do contain some powerful “Good Works” – remember – this series is Genuine Faith, Good Works and some of the most powerful good works that we as born-again believers can perform are contained in these verses. Verse 18 – we were brought forth by the will of God and by the Word of Truth.

The Word of Truth, this implanted Word, is the Word that we need to be hearing and doing. The more we hear, the stronger our faith comes (Romans 10:17) – we need to feed our faith every day. Read our Bibles, particularly our New Testaments, we need to play quality sermons from reputable ministers, play their podcasts, watch their video clips - expose ourselves to the ministry of the Word of God. This is so important,

Very important to read your Bible every day!

So, doing good works, based on the Word of Truth - We covered verse 19 last week…

Verses 20, 21 - 20 for the anger of man does not produce the righteousness of God. 21 Therefore put away all filthiness and rampant wickedness and receive with meekness the implanted word, which is able to save your souls.

The more and more we lock into the Word of God, the Word of Truth, the less and less will we be prone to hasty, careless speech, outright wickedness and angry behaviour – none of which pleases God. The more we eradicate this behaviour from our life the more we please God and the further we grow in spiritual things. We learn what to say, how to say it, what to do, how to do it – all of this instruction is contained within our Bibles. The saving of our souls is a progressive cleansing process, a progressive renewing of our mind process, a progressive sanctification process, ultimately all coming together in the completion of our Salvation as Gods saving work for us believers that try to honour the Lord with our lives.

22 But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves.

If we fail to put into practice that which we have heard and read, the whole exercise becomes self-deceptive. We think we know what we are doing yet the doing is not a part of us. That’s self-deceptive. 23 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. 24 For he looks at himself and goes away and at once forgets what he was like.

When you look into a mirror – you see your own self that is reflected back to you. I have a wife and four daughters that had to get ready for church every Sunday morning – five ladies to get out the door and into the car and only two bathrooms….