Mirror in the Soul...

The passage I am reviewing is James 1:21-25

"Therefore lay aside all filthiness and overflow of wickedness, and receive with meekness the implanted word, which is able to save your souls. 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." nkjv

There is one thing I have heard from many pastors or teachers coming from various theological viewpoints over the years that I have been saved. The basic idea of the following statement has stayed with me as I grow in the grace and knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ, and it goes something like this:

When you are preaching, teaching, or sharing God’s Word, remember that it must first go through you with honest conviction, yielding yourself to the corrections and being willing to see your own wrongs as you are speaking of particular wrongs.

Naturally we tend to receive with no trouble the positive, encouraging, edifying, enlightening, or comforting statements or promises in the Scriptures. Or those things that we think confirm or verify our own rightness in matters of our thinking or behavior. We are usually wide open to this great acceptance. But I think we all need to put down our "Breastplate of unrighteousness" which we have up many times to shield our soul from the holy convictions which we must yield to and be willing to confess and change through Christ’s redeeming power.

May we consider these verses and their context:

Romans 2:1
"Therefore you are inexcusable, O man, whoever you are who judge, for in whatever you judge another you condemn yourself; for you who judge practice the same things." nkjv

and

1 Cor. 11:28
"But let a man examine himself, and so let him eat of the bread and drink of the cup." nkjv

and

2 Cor. 13:5
"Examine yourselves as to whether you are in the faith. Test yourselves. Do you not know yourselves, that Jesus Christ is in you?—unless indeed you are disqualified." nkjv

Do we take these words to heart with serious self examination? Or are we so familiar with them through years of conditioning and seeing only our proud accomplishments that we grieve our Lord and Savior and quench His Holy Spirit as He is moving on us to pay attention to these convictions first before showing others all we know?

The only true rightness any one of has is that which is imparted through faith in the righteousness of Christ and His work of redemption and renewal. And the knowledge by itself puffs up but through love edifies. Sometimes I see this happening:

Over and over, again and again, person after person, ministry after ministry in what is claimed as Christendom there are those who speak out against others yet they are living in sin and the denial of it. And many times they can be apparently so proficient in revealing God’s Word as it applies to others, meanwhile they are in some similar sorts of errors. It is like God is shining His light of conviction on their soul and instead of letting Christ complete His work of change through repentance, they take the mirror of their soul, and find others to reflect it on. Often this turns into condemnation of others as their soul strives to ignore and suppress the reality of their own sin. In other words their mirror is angled so that they don’t see themselves though God’s correcting words but others that they think deserve this as condemnation. As they grieve and quench God's Spirit this way, I believe this may somehow sear their consciences so they won’t have to face their sham or shame and repent of their own treasured and concealed sin.

I don’t know about you, but I long for the conviction of God to change me more and more into Christ’s likeness. Sin is like a hard crust on my soul keeping me from knowing the freedom that comes through living in the Love of Christ and letting Him be Lord of my spirit, soul, and body. Only through faith and confession to God and God alone can the effect of Christ’s powerful death and resurrection break this hardened crust of the deceitfulness of sin, so that I may have the good fruit of God’s Holy Spirit that says "Against such there is no law"(Gal 5).

I know of a man right now who is on the web saying he is a Christian and speaking out against false teachers and false teachings yet he himself is lying to people by portraying the many different identities and personalties that are never revealed as being the same person. Somehow rationalizing his deceptive ways while claiming a ministry of exposing liars. Do you see how he has angled the mirror in his soul?

Then there is a major organization known as CRI with a Hank Hanegraaff who tags himself "The Bible answer man". Read this and you will see how ironic his so-called ministry is and how he holds his mirror. As my wife and I were reading this we found amazing similarities, with a much smaller reach, regarding the matter we went through with a pastor we found had fooled us for some time and hurt many people in our circumstance and in other churches before as well. You may see this matter here .

Just as history has shown I believe our future history will reveal those who have been very naive about characters like those mentioned above. For instance, I know of apparently respectable and reknowned men who have honored the pastor that we have reported on factnet. When I think of how we were fooled by this man for so long I don’t feel as bad about my naivety when I find that even some people whom I respect to this day have been fooled and may still be fooled by this man. Deception is an amazing thing to witness when God has made the truth of a man's character known to you personally but even the well trained, experienced haven’t realized it yet. The right circumstances and questioning will reveal what is inside a man real fast sometimes. I am of course praying for the truth to be seen by these men in due season.

We do know God’s Word says:

Prov. 20:27
"The spirit of man is the candle of the LORD, searching all the inward parts of the belly."

and

1 Cor 4:5
"Therefore judge nothing before the time, until the Lord comes, who will both bring to light the hidden things of darkness and reveal the counsels of the hearts. Then each one’s praise will come from God." nkjv

and

2 Cor 4:2
"But we have renounced the hidden things of shame, not walking in craftiness nor handling the word of God deceitfully, but by manifestation of the truth commending ourselves to every man’s conscience in the sight of God." nkjv

and

1 Tim 5:24-25
"Some men’s sins are clearly evident, preceding them to judgment, but those of some men follow later. Likewise, the good works of some are clearly evident, and those that are otherwise cannot be hidden." nkjv

With God as our only perfect and true Judge, are we a doer of God’s Word or a hearer only, deceiving ourselves?

May we learn to shine the mirror of God’s Word onto our own soul’s planks very thoroughly with the desire of removal before we look at the specs in our brother's or sister's eyes... AMEN

God willing, my next post will be regarding: Who(?) owns our knowledge and understanding of Truth from God? And would God have Christian's copyright in order to gain material or prestige from the knowledge and understanding He gave to us? The Scripture is:

1 Cor 4:7
"For who makes you differ from another? And what do you have that you did not receive? Now if you did indeed receive it, why do you boast as if you had not received it?" nkjv

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