There is nothing that you can do for yourself.

There is an incredible burden on my heart, one that has been even more profound these last few weeks. Daily sanctification is a journey. When we truly confess our sins, and have a genuine repenting heart, and professed that Jesus Christ is LORD, His blood cleanses the soul. After we have a soul free from the bonds of sin, then the spirit is free to dwell inside. Justification is the result of faith in and acceptance of God’s grace and mercy. Once the Spirit of the LORD dwells inside of us, we are able to have intense fellowship with God. It is a direct line to Him. We feel that correction of a loving father through the imputing of the Holy Spirit. The conviction we feel when something is wrong, or when we have offended someone comes from the Holy Spirit that dwells in us. But so does power. When we have the Holy Spirit inside of us, and we call on the Holy Spirit to take control and genuinely give up that control to the Holy Spirit we have power from God. It is important to recognize that that power is not ours. It is important to recognize and praise the source of that power. The indwelling of the Holy Spirit strengthens us as well as corrects us.

This is on my heart because of two things. The first is this. These past few weeks I have been confronted by a man. I believe he is a good man, and a hard-working man. I should know I work with. Over the past few weeks, and especially the last week, he has texted me often. He has been quoting scripture as he seeks answers for some work related issues. But this man believes that he is being wronged by administrators of our company. This man has a tendency to allow anger to overcome him. And I believe that he is using Scripture to authorize his anger and wrath. The second thing is simple. I believe I recognize this because I am guilty of the very same thing. We have been told “it takes one to know one”. Well, I believe that is true in this case. I love the word of God. I love the feeling of communication and communion with God during biblical studies, prayer, fellowship with like-minded Christians, and other situations where the presence of the Lord is genuinely felt. But in situations where things are not going well, the sinful flesh of my old self wants to take over. It is in this regard that my heart is burdened.

All of us, every self-proclaimed follower of Jesus Christ who believes that they benefit from the mercy and grace of the Almighty Father, better understand one thing. There is nothing that you can do for yourself. The Holy Scripture is meant to be our source of many things. The Scripture is our source of wisdom, of comfort, of guidance, of power, and so on. What the Bible is not, is a weapon to be used to justify our own desires. We cannot talk about putting on the full armor of God to go to battle to defend our desire of selfishness and still be in the will of God. In one of his texts, my coworker quoted the book of James. The book of James is one of my most favorite books. It should not be misconstrued as a book of works righteousness, but rather instruction on how the indwelling Holy Spirit brings about good works through you. Once again, you better understand that there is nothing that man can do for himself. My coworker specifically quoted verse 22 and 23.

James 1:22-23, “22 But be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves. 23 For if any be a hearer of the word, and not a doer, he is like unto a man beholding his natural face in a glass:”

My coworker went on to quote a few other Scriptures. He was collecting them verse by verse from various places, trying to explain to me that the Bible says that we are to stand up and defend the faith and defend his position that he is not going to take anymore of the administrations non-sense by saying in his words, “compromising no more.” This would be a good thought if what we were talking about not compromising was faith in the word of God. My coworker is struggling with some personnel issues with administration, as well as some pay issues. In some regards I don’t think Jesus ever expected us to be pushovers. If we were to truly let all non-believers, like ISIS, just kill all of us, there would be no-one left to preach the word. But I do think that he expected us to use the spirit to help us discern between what’s right and wrong. My observation is that my coworker will take Scripture and use it to defend the execution of his wrath instead of allowing himself to be humbled by the spirit so that God’s wrath will prevail. Once again there is nothing that man can do for himself. God’s wrath will always be more righteous and more just than anything that man can come up with. I must repeat myself. I do not say this to lecture my coworker. I say this because it is a hard lesson, one that I have learned about myself over and over. I am grateful for the conviction of the spirit.

So let’s take a look at what James is saying here. It is my intention to lift up the word of God so that we can have a better understanding of what it means to be doers of the word. In order to do that, I think we have to quote more than just two versus, to keep everything in context. So let’s start and James verse 19

James 1:19-27
19 Wherefore, my beloved brethren, let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath: 20 For the wrath of man worketh not the righteousness of God.
21 Wherefore lay apart all filthiness and superfluity of naughtiness, and receive with meekness the engrafted word, which is able to save your souls. 22 But be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves. 23 For if any be a hearer of the word, and not a doer, he is like unto a man beholding his natural face in a glass: 24 For he beholdeth himself, and goeth his way, and straightway forgetteth what manner of man he was. 25 But whoso looketh into the perfect law of liberty, and continueth therein, he being not a forgetful hearer, but a doer of the work, this man shall be blessed in his deed. 26 If any man among you seem to be religious, and bridleth not his tongue, but deceiveth his own heart, this man’s religion is vain. 27 Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, To visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world.

My study Bible the Tyndale life application study Bible has a small paragraph providing commentary on the 27th verse. That commentary, on page 1887, reads as follows,
“to keep ourselves unpolluted (“unspotted”) from the world, we need to commit ourselves to Christ’s ethical and moral system not the world’s. We are not to adapt to the world’s value system based on money, power, and pleasure. True faith means nothing if we are contaminated with such values.

I think that it is absolutely awesome that Joseph Benson makes the following commentary about “slow to speak”. When I think of my coworker and myself I think about his words here that say,

“To deliver his opinion in matters of faith, that he does not yet well understand. Persons half instructed frequently have a high opinion of their own knowledge in religious matters, are very fond of teaching others, and zealous to bring them over to their opinions.”

We have a high opinion of our own knowledge and are very fond of teaching others in order to bring them over to our opinions. Again, I have to be honest. If you cannot look at this and say, “Yep, that is me sometimes.” the let me simply say that it is most certainly me sometimes. Unfortunately, for my co-worker, I think that is so true in these text messages. I love the book of James and am very familiar with it. And when I know what my coworker is trying to accomplish; and I see the Scriptures that he’s quoting in order to accomplish it, I see these words by Joseph Benson come to life. My coworker also texted to me that brethren in the faith, “also stand up for each other when we are being wronged” I would say that I would go to war for a friend if I believe my friend was being wronged. The problem is what he believes is wrong and what I believe are wrong are two different things. And he is willing to put our spiritual relationship on a hook if I don’t stand up for him; If I don’t go to war with him over what he believes is right. The Scripture does not say anything close to that. But I must say I have shared that opinion in the past and had the audacity to be upset with a brother for not being on my side. You want to talk about guilt. Once I realized what I was doing, there was no apology big enough. But THANK GOD FOR THE BLOOD OF CHRIST that allowed a brother to forgive another brother and for one brother to learn to pay attention to his mouth more often.

I’m going to continue with more commentary by Joseph Benson, because I believe he is spot on. Continuing to refer to the rest of the verses in James 1:19-27, he writes,

“The apostle, however, may be understood as cautioning his readers against easily yielding to provocation in any respect whatever, and especially when injuriously treated by their persecutors. For the wrath of man — Even when it appears in the garb of religious zeal, worketh not — But, on the contrary, greatly obstructs, the righteousness of God — Instead of promoting the cause of true religion in the world, it is a reproach to it, and a means of exciting the prejudices of mankind against it. Persecution, in particular, the effect of the wrath of man, if violent, may make men hypocrites, by forcing them to profess what they do not believe; but it has no influence to produce that genuine faith which God accounts to men for righteousness. Nothing but rational arguments, with the illumination of the Spirit of God, can do this.”

When I read these words I cannot help but think of myself, “On more than one occasion I have represented this hypocrisy, lack of influence to produce genuine faith, and reproach in exercising my own wrath. I am certain that people have looked at me and said, “who is this man?” One minute I was talking about God and the next minute I was acting like a lunatic. I am ashamed to admit that this still happens from time to time. My daily sanctification has me working on this issue because I believe every word that Joseph Benson is saying here is truth. I believe that this is something that I clearly see in others because I am so acutely aware of its existence inside my own body. It is something that I wanted to take time to caution everyone about. We live in a day and age where people are looking at Christians and scrutinizing us with the most critical eye. We cannot afford to dampen the light of Jesus Christ, we cannot afford to contaminate the ethical and moral system of Jesus Christ with our own wrath brought about by the violation of our own morals. This whole relationship, salvation, is not about us. I say again, there is nothing that we can do for ourselves. Everything is about Jesus the Christ!

I have had many conversations with myself, the man in the mirror, and the triune God. My question to you is, “are you having these conversations yourselves?” I know many Christians, just like my coworker and I, who have used or continue to use Scripture to validate their questionable behavior. There is righteous anger. There is anger that has compassion for change in it. But if your anger leads to sin, if it produces hate in your heart or even just a little anger in your thoughts, then perhaps this conversation in the mirror is something you should take time to have sooner rather than later.

If you stand in the mirror what will the reflection tell you about yourself, and what are you going to do about it? May the peace of God be abundantly heaped upon you and your house, straight from the cross to the Christian!