So, we are to be slow at speaking and slow to anger, just God is slow to anger and abounding in love and prompt in listening. However, this desire to listen is not meant to be passive. Jesus talked about his followers being “both hearers and doers of his word”, so too does James.
A look at the Text (Read James 1:22-27)
If you only listen and don’t put what you hear into practice then you are a fool. You’ve managed to deceive yourself (1:22). James compares this type of person to someone who is so forgetful, that when they look in the mirror in the morning, they forget their own image as soon as they glance away (v23-24). In this case, the mirror represents God’s law which upholds up a reflection to us of what we are meant to be like if we are righteous. There is freedom when we look, remember and act. This leads to blessing (1:25).
This wise, righteous, obedient living includes self-control. If you are slow to speak and slow to anger, then you’ve got control over your tongue (1:26). It’s about more than that, though, not just about restrictions and guards, about what we don’t do but about what we positively do and say as we show practical love to others. James particularly singles out our care for the vulnerable, for orphans and widows. When we are self-controlled in what we say and compassionate in our actions, then we are refusing to let this world corrupt us into its ways of thinking, speaking and acting (1:27).
Digging Deeper
What is this “perfect law”? Wasn’t the Lasw something that we could not keep? Didn’t Paul argue that if you submitted to one command, then you came under the condemnation of the whole law? Is James talking about something different here, a law of freedom? Yes and no. Paul will contrast the Law of the Spirit with the written code and argue that this gives life where the code brings death. However, the point is not that God gives different words, different commands. Rather, it is that God’s perfect Law is the Law perfected by Christ, fulfilled by him and then through the Holy Spirit made possible for us to obey not just the external forms of the commands but from the heart. It’s the Law as summed up by “Love God and love neighbour.”
A look at ourselves
If we are not just hearers but also doers then our lives will be characterised by love. This is only possible when God has poured out his love into our lives.
Faithroots 