James 1:22

We are therefore bound by the word of our Teacher not to be constant listeners only to the Word of God but also constant doers. For the man who, though listening not, doeth, is better than the man who is constant in listening and empty …

"Deceiving yourselves" means deluding yourselves, counting your own salvation as nothing.

In other words, be mindful of your own salvation!

Be however doers of the word, and not hearers only, etc. Thus also Paul about the observers of the law. "Not the hearers," he says, "of the law are just before God, but the doers of the law shall be justified" (Rom. II). And in …

"There must be inward practice by meditation, and outward practice in true obedience." Baxter. It is not enough to remember what we hear, and to be able to repeat it, and to give testimony to it, and commend it, and write it, and preserve what we have written; that which all this is in order to, and which crowns the rest, is that we be doers of the word.

And every perfect gift - Whatever tends to glory. Descendeth from the Father of lights - The appellation of Father is here used with peculiar propriety. It follows, "he begat us." He is the Father of all light, material or spiritual, in the kingdom of grace and of glory.

But be ye doers of the word,.... And they are such, who spiritually understand it; gladly receive it; and from the heart obey it, and make a sincere and ingenuous profession of it; and who submit to the ordinances it directs to, and keep them as they have been delivered; and live, and walk, becoming their profession of it.

The character by which our author desires to be known: James, a servant of God, and of the Lord Jesus Christ. Though he was a prime-minister in Christ's kingdom, yet he styles himself only a servant. Note hence, Those who are highest in office or attainments in the church of Christ are but servants.

But be ye doers of the word - They had heard this doctrine; they had believed it; but they had put it to no practical use. They were downright Antinomians, who put a sort of stupid, inactive faith in the place of all moral righteousness. This is sufficiently evident from the second chapter. Deceiving your own selves - Παραλογιζομενοι ἑαυτους· Imposing on your own selves by sophistical arguments; this is the meaning of the words. They had reasoned themselves into a state of carnal security, and the object of St. James is, to awake them out of their sleep.

James here again refers to the Sermon on the Mount (Mt 7:21-29). deceiving your own selves--by the logical fallacy (the Greek implies this) that the mere hearing is all that is needed.

BRETHREN, it is a good thing to be under the sound of the Word of God. Even if the very lowest motive should induce persons to come to hear the Gospel, it is, nevertheless, a good thing that they should come. We have heard of some who have even come to steal—and yet the Word of God has stolen into their hearts.

BRETHREN, it is a good thing to be under the sound of the Word of God. Even if the very lowest motive should induce persons to come to hear the Gospel, it is, nevertheless, a good thing that they should come. We have heard of some who have even come to steal—and yet the Word of God has stolen into their hearts. In many cases, in olden times, spies were sent to hear the Protestant divines who preached the Gospel—and these took notes of all that was said, with a view to accuse them of false doctrine that they might be punished—yet in several cases, the spies, themselves, were converted! Such is the power of the Gospel of Christ, that it woos and wins, even, its greatest enemies. He that comes near to its fire, even with the intent to quench it, may find himself overcome by its heat. Master Hugh Latimer, in his quaint manner, when exhorting people to go to church, tells of a woman who could not sleep for many nights, notwithstanding that drugs had been given to her. She said that if they would take her to her parish church she could sleep, there, for she had often enjoyed a quiet slumber under the sermon. And he goes the length of saying that if people even come to the sermon to sleep, it is better than not to come at all for, he adds, in his fine old Saxon, "they may be caught napping." It is even so. A sick man does well to live where there are physicians, for one day he may be healed. If men are in the heat of a battle, they may be wounded—if they come where Gospel arrows are shot, they may fall under them. Plants that grow in the open are likely to be watered when the shower falls. We dare not say to any man who wills to enter the House of Prayer, "You must not come because your motive is gross and low." No, you are welcome, anyway! Who knows but that, being in the way, God may meet with you.

But be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only - Obey the gospel, and do not merely listen to it. Compare Mat 7:21. Deceiving your own selves - It is implied here, that by merely hearing the word but not doing it, they would deceive their own souls. The nature of this deception was this, that they would imagine that that was all which was required, whereas the main thing was that they should be obedient. If a man supposes that by a mere punctual attendance on preaching, or a respectful attention to it, he has done all that is required of him, he is laboring under a most gross self-deception. And yet there are multitudes who seem to imagine that they have done all that is demanded of them when they have heard attentively the word preached. Of its influence on their lives, and its claims to obedience, they are utterly regardless.

When we hear God's Word and do not do it, we deceive our own hearts!