Be doers of the word, and not hearers only. Otherwise, you are deceiving yourselves. For anyone who hears the word but does not carry it out is like a man who looks at his face in a mirror, and after observing himself goes away and immediately forgets what he looks like.
James 1:22-24
The Forgetful Mirror
James encourages us to be doers of the word—people who actually do what Jesus says—but it's also important to be a hearer. The distinction he's making here is that we shouldn't just be hearers; we should also be doers. If we only hear, we are deceiving ourselves. We don't actually believe what Jesus has told us to do, because if we did we would be action-oriented towards helping others and serving others. In fact, Jesus says that he came not to be served but to serve, and beyond that, he came to serve the least of these. If we hear that but we don't do that, we are deceiving ourselves, as James says, because we're not actually doing what Jesus did.
James gives us an example here where he says that anybody who does this is like someone who looks at the mirror and immediately forgets what he looks like. Imagine you go get ready for your morning. You look at your hair, your face, everything, and then you walk away and you're like, "Oh wait, I forgot what I look like! Do I still look good?" Then you go back and you return and you just start staring at yourself again. It's a good thing to check your appearance before you leave for work so people don't think you're crazy, but if that's all you do, that's all you'll ever do. You never leave; you never go out into the world, and you never take what you have heard and what you've seen and bring it out to the world.
Don't Wait for Someone Else
So what can we do? This may be one of the most practical verses in the entire New Testament aside from "go and make disciples." James tells us what to do, and that's to go out and do what we've heard. What is it that we've heard? Well, Jesus tells us to go out and make disciples, as I've mentioned, with the Great Commission. We are also to go out and serve the least of these. We're supposed to take care of the widow and the orphan and the homeless and the lost and the forgotten. This is what we're called to do. This is what we're supposed to do when we hear the word.
Specifically, that may look like serving your church in a practical way. If you have specific skills, or maybe you just have a nice smile that would work well on the hospitality team. Maybe you have a gift for teaching children, or a gift for public speaking. Maybe you have a gift of music and you can join your worship team, or you would prefer to be part of a team that organizes outreach.
Don't wait for someone else to do it. You do it because that's what it means to be truly a doer of God's Word compared to just a hearer.
Prayer
Father, thank you for this clear picture of what it looks like to serve you and to live for you! Help me and help us to find ways that we can practically help and serve our communities in a way that brings you glory. We pray all this in Jesus' name. Amen