DIFFERENCE IN DOERS AND HEARERS ONLY
James 1: 22-25
The word of God shows us what we are by nature like the mirror shows us our natural face. We are dying flesh with no good thing or word in us by nature, only defiling excess. The hearer forgets this quickly. But every believer, with open face beholds in this word as in a mirror, the glory of God in the face of Christ Jesus. Every believer is changed into his image from glory to glory by the Spirit of the Lord (2 Cor 3:18). Therefore, as we receive mercy of the Lord, the believer does not forget that there is no good thing in him, but continues in Christ Jesus his Redeemer. The believer is a doer of the work: waiting on the Lord in patience of hope (James 1:4), asking wisdom of God in faith (James 1:5), rejoicing in Christ no matter the station the Lord has placed him (James 1:9-11), putting off the old man and receiving with meekness the engrafted word (James 1:21.) The one who is a hearer-only finds these things a great burden and impossibility, but the Lord enables the sinner in whom the Word of God truly abides so that he is happy to continue in them.