Day 6: Tuesday 2/24

READ: James 1:22-27 

You must be doers of the word and not only hearers who mislead themselves. Those who hear but don’t do the word are like those who look at their faces in a mirror. They look at themselves, walk away, and immediately forget what they were like. But there are those who study the perfect law, the law of freedom, and continue to do it. They don’t listen and then forget, but they put it into practice in their lives. They will be blessed in whatever they do. If those who claim devotion to God don’t control what they say, they mislead themselves. Their devotion is worthless. True devotion, the kind that is pure and faultless before God the Father, is this: to care for orphans and widows in their difficulties and to keep the world from contaminating us.

REFLECT 

This is the hinge of James's letter: doers, not hearers only. It's possible to engage deeply with Scripture, to be moved by worship, to know all the right theology — and still not actually do what God says. James calls this self-deception. Real religion isn't intellectual assent or spiritual feeling. It's concrete: caring for orphans and widows (the most vulnerable under empire) and refusing to be polluted by the world's systems.

RESPOND 

What's one thing you know God is calling you to do that would cost you something? Take one step toward it today.

PRAY 

God of widows and orphans, expose our self-deception. Show us where knowledge has replaced obedience. Give us courage to actually live what we claim to believe. Amen.