“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 observing his natural face in a mirror; for he observes himself, goes away, and immediately forgets what kind of man he was. But he who looks into the perfect law of liberty and continues in it, and is not a forgetful hearer but a doer of the work, this one will be blessed in what he does.
If anyone among you thinks he is religious, and does not bridle his tongue but deceives his own heart, this one’s religion is useless. Pure and undefiled religion before God and the Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their trouble, and to keep oneself unspotted from the world.” James 1:22-27
For the longest time this passage by St. James stuck out to me in Scripture as a kind of gauntlet of salvation thrown down before me. “But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves.” I knew my deeds to be sinful, questioned the hope of my salvation, and despaired. In doing so, I was as one walking away from a mirror not knowing one’s own image. Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me a blind and forgetful sinner.
The truth of the matter is that I should never have focused on my works as things in and of themselves. It’s was never about my worthiness. It is about Jesus. It is always about Jesus. The issue at hand is not the legal record of my deeds, but the image and likeness in which I find myself. Jesus is the image of God, and we are to live, grow, and have our being in that image. Our “religion” is to imitate Christ. We are created in His image, and should live accordingly.
How quickly and easily we forget the image in which we were created. St. Paul tells the Church in Corinth:
And I, brethren, could not speak to you as to spiritual people but as to carnal, as to babes in Christ. I fed you with milk and not with solid food; for until now you were not able to receive it, and even now you are still not able; for you are still carnal. For where there are envy, strife, and divisions among you, are you not carnal and behaving like mere men? …Do you not know that you are the temple of God and that the Spirit of God dwells in you? 1 Corinthians 3:1-3,16
It has even been said that choirs of angels go before each human crying, “Make way, make way for the image of God!” How is it we remain deaf and blind to this reality? The truth is that we are created in the image of God, yet we live as though we are created in the image of beasts – or worse yet, demons. You are created to be like God. The word “Christian” means “little Christ.” It’s all about Jesus. Let us remember this and view the world and our lives through this reality.
