“But be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves.“– James 1:22

That is just the trouble with a great many people–they can answer correctly. They know all about their duty. They can repeat with glib tongue, text after text of Scripture. They can recite catechism and creed without missing a word, and like to boast of their thorough familiarity with these sacred formularies. But it is the doing that they fall short in.

They know the commandments–but they fail to keep them. They can quote any number of Bible texts about honesty and truthfulness–yet they are neither honest nor truthful. They like to talk about the love of Christ, which is meek, gentle, patient, and compassionate–but they do not think of getting any of this spirit into their own life!

They recite texts about sending the gospel to the heathen, and make speeches about saving the lost–but neither give money nor make any personal effort to save others!

If doing were as easy as knowing–how blessed we would all be! Would it not be a beautiful thing for us–to try to live all the duty we know?– Copied

“If ye know these things, happy are ye if ye do them.” John 13:17

“Turn away mine eyes from beholding vanity;…” Psalm 119:37

Dear friends, do not gaze upon any sin . . .
for looking breeds longing,
and longing begets lusting,
and lusting brings sinning!

Keep your eyes right–and you may keep your heart right.

If that first woman had not looked upon the forbidden tree and seen “that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise,” she would not have plucked and eaten the forbidden fruit–and we would not have been the children of sin and sorrow!

O friends, if we begin to look upon iniquity, we shall almost certainly fall! There are some sins that we poor, frail creatures cannot endure to look at. We are as moths near a burning candle–the only safety for us is to get out of the room and fly into the open air. But if we go near the candle–we shall certainly burn our wings and, perhaps, even destroy ourselves!

Just so, we must take care that we do not get used to sin. I believe that even the common reading in the newspapers of accounts of evil things is defiling to us. If we habitually read such things, we shall come, at last, to think less and less of the coarser forms of vice than we ought to do.

Nothing can keep us away from the fangs of sin, like falling into the embraces of Christ. Looking unto Jesus, is the great remedy against looking unto sin!

Turn away my eyes from vanity, my Lord, by filling them full with a vision of Yourself and holding me spellbound with that grandest spectacle that eyes of men, or angels, or even of God, Himself ever saw–the spectacle of God Incarnate bearing our sin in His own body on the Cross!

Keep your eyes fixed there–and all will be well. —Charles Spurgeon

“Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus: who, being in the form of God…made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant“– Philippians 2:5-7

Let this mind be in you.The Christian life is not merely intellectual assent to a list of orthodox tenets. It is internalizing the teaching and example of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

And as we look at Christ through the infallible lens of God’s Word the Bible, we are reminded that his way is up-side-down (or rather right-side-up) from the way of this world. Jesus did not work his way to the top; he started at the top, as God himself, and yet chose to humble himself for the sake of his people.

Here was a self-made man: Jesus, who is due all glory and honor, made himself of no reputation. Jesus, who is King of Kings and Lord of Lords, took on himself the role of a servant. How sad and ironic that most of us spend all our energy in life striving to do the exact opposite.

This is doubtless why Jesus, from the outset, told those who admired him that they would have to deny themselves in order to become his disciple. Yet so many Christians want to claim discipleship, but without the sacrifice, without the self-denial, without the humility.

Beloved, let this mind be in you — may you internalize the reality of who Christ is, of how he lived, and of what he demands of us.– (A Good Thing)