The Perfect Law of Liberty

Personally, I really enjoy that rousing music. It gets my blood flowing, also praising God this way. Such a spiritual hymn.

Right. So, okay. I have here a mirror. Now, obviously, I didn't buy it for myself, but my wife has this. And we take mirrors for granted. We use mirrors today. We prepared. We dressed up. We looked in the mirror. Saw if everything was aligned or not. And it's something that is so common today, but mirrors were very expensive back a couple of centuries ago. Just the past three centuries that they really perfected the making of mirrors. Now they're so common. You can buy them any place. A dollar store, even. You can buy them for a dollar. But there was a time when a French baroness actually, she had a feel of productive fertile wheat. Her name was the Countess Le Fisk. Who knows? Maybe connected to some of the Fisk here. But the Countess in France, back in the 17th century, she traded in an entire wheat field for a mirror. And she thought she got a very good deal out of it. Now, it probably used to be as large as maybe 30 inches across, but just one mirror for a whole productive field. And she thought she got a bargain.

There are two elements or characteristics of a mirror that I want to first of all bring and highlight. That is, that a mirror only works where there is light because it cannot produce light. It can only reflect light.

It is useless in a dark place. Even if you had a huge mirror where there's no light, you can't tell. There's a mirror there. And number two, it can't do anything about the defects it shows. Oh yes, you can look at yourself in the mirror and you can see if you have a smudge or whatever. But the mirror itself does not remove a stain. It only shows that there are defects or flaws or spots.

So a mirror reflects light. And if it is nicely made, like this one here, it's very flat. And it can faithfully reflect the light coming in. It bounces at the same angle and it reproduces the same wavelengths. That is why it can be a faithful image of what it is reflecting. God's Word uses the analogy of a mirror to reflect what God's Word is supposed to do. And it is a beautiful analogy of God's overall Word and in particular His law. I'm going to read to you from James 1, verses 22-25. And actually, James repeated this scripture twice as far as describing God's law. James 1, verses 22-25 says, Now the word there is talking about the Word of God.

And those are the key words for this message. The perfect law of liberty and continues in it and is not a forgetful hearer but a doer of the work. This one will be blessed in what he does. So here was Jesus Christ's brother from the side of Joseph and Mary, who knew Jesus since he was a very small child. James was a younger half-brother of Jesus. And then he became the apostle of the church in Jerusalem. He was one of the pillars of the church. And so he knew Jesus intimately, finally received God's Spirit after Christ was resurrected, and became an integral part and leader of the church. So he knew what he was talking about, and he calls God's law the perfect law of liberty.

I like to read the same verses from the Good News Bible. Some of these explain better than the New King James does. Sometimes these other versions are not that faithful, but they can bring out certain elements when they are good translations. It says, if you listen to the word but not put it into practice, you are like people who look in a mirror and see themselves as they are. They take a good look at themselves and then go away and at once forget what they look like. But if you look closely into the perfect law that sets people free and keep on paying attention to it, and do not simply listen and then forget it, but put it into practice, you will be blessed by God in what you do.

The term mirror actually comes from a Latin term, which means mirror. Because Spanish comes from the Latin, we use that very similar word, mirar, without the e at the end. And it means to look, to observe, and to admire something. So this is where you look. You look, and many times you admire, sometimes not so much. Now the second time James uses the law to describe it in a certain way, it says in James 2, verse 12. James 2, verse 12, it says, So speak, and so do as those who will be judged by the law of liberty. I didn't use the word perfect here, but he had already explained it that way. But it is the law of liberty.

In God's word translation, it puts it, Talk and act as people who are going to be judged by the laws that bring freedom. And so this is very different from what the religious world teaches. That God's law somehow enslaves, it hinders, it's something to be done away with. But here, James twice talks about the law of liberty. And I'd like to focus on those three words, perfect law of liberty.

First, the word perfect, tell-e-us, T-E-L-I-O-S, and it means complete, perfect, what has reached culmination. So it is something full, lacking in nothing. Now the Hebrew equivalent to liberty means wide spaces, something that makes you feel free. You're not confined. You're not restricted. It's something that allows you to broadly walk, just like a huge field or beautiful area that you hike through. You feel free. You feel at liberty. No fences around in that sense. You enjoy yourselves within that area. The second word, nomos, is what law means, and those are the norms given by God for judging. So there are laws, there are norms in the Bible that God expresses, of which He will judge us, according to whether we obey or we disobey. And then the third term, liberty. That in the Greek, eleotharia, e-l-e-u-t-h-e-r-i-a. And it means freedom. It means generosity. And actually, from two terms, eleo, which means going to a place, and then theria, means reaching the desired destination. So it means nothing is impeded or hindered for you to accomplishing your goals, those goals established by God.

The law of God leads us into perfect freedom.

That means freedom from wrong thoughts, wrong actions. There's the freedom of inner peace that your thoughts and emotions can be according to what God designed them for, free from the enslavement of this world's wrong values.

And this will not be fully realized in this lifetime. But in the millennium, when Christ reigns, that perfect law of liberty, just like a mirror, is going to be shown to everyone. Because today, this mirror is being rejected. It's being thrown. People do not want to look. They don't want to see themselves in the light of God's Word as God sees them.

And that's one of the descriptions of a carnal mind, a mind that's unconverted, that doesn't yield to what God wants us to do. So once we arrive at the millennium, the thousand-year period under Christ, that period is going to be led under Christ by spirit beings with God's perfect character. Remember, God is not a slave to anything or to any evil. He cannot do evil. He is not tempted by evil. And so He has perfect liberty because it's all good. So let's look at this first characteristic of the mirror. I've got to watch it here because it's a strong reflection and can actually blind a person with all these lights here. But the first characteristic of a mirror is that it reflects reality. It reflects things as they are, not as we want them to be. And the spiritual mirror of God's Word shows us our real selves as God sees us. And only when we become spirit beings will we know fully our true selves. And we will see how we thought of ourselves as humans and how flawed that image and that identity was with the reality of it. So conversion is a bitter pill to swallow. It is something where we have to put the ego down and recognize that we have a distorted view of reality. That's why we need God's Word. Notice in 1 John 3, verses 1 and 2. I'm going to read it to you here. It says, So then we will be able to have a level of spiritual discernment, and we will be spirit beings, and we will see the reality of things, not through a carnal human nature that we have today. We'll be able to see Him as He is, and it's a reflection of our minds that we'll be able to see God as He is because it will no longer be distorted by our human nature.

Now, the Bible teaches we have a flawed-viewed view of ourselves. We think we're fine just as we are, but it is a distorted perspective. Notice in Jeremiah 17, verse 9. We've read this before. Jeremiah 17, 9 says, It's easy to deceive ourselves. That spiritual mirror shows us what we should be and the reality of how far short we fall from that. In God's word version of this verse, it says, And so again, this is why God provides us with a spiritual mirror so we can see how we should be. And just in the first message that Dave Updograph gave, he talked about, well, what about grudges? God's word says, this is not what we should do. And it shows us examples of people that held grudges and how much misery they went through because they weren't able to overcome them, to the point where they wanted to kill their younger brother Joseph because of the envy and the jealousy that they held. They held a grudge against him. And actually, they should have blamed the father more than the son for favoring this younger one, giving him the multicolored coat, not giving him to any of the other ones. How were they going to feel? Well, they felt inferior. They felt fallen out of favor. And so that bred a lot of this resentment and the grudges.

Another scripture along this line is Proverbs 14, verse 12. It says, there is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way of death. It's a wrong way of living. It leads to condemnation.

And so people have a problem with God's mirror. They don't like what they see, so they throw the mirror out.

They refuse to believe in God's laws, which are a perfect reflection of God's character.

Another scripture along this line, Romans 8, verses 6-8. It says, for to be carnally minded is death, but to be spiritually minded is life and peace, because the carnal mind is enmity against God, for it is not subject to the law of God, nor indeed can be. So then those who are in the flesh cannot please God. Again, that's why we're such a small church. We don't have a very popular message. It says we have to look at the spiritual mirror, examine ourselves in light of God's word, and see what we need to change, and not use some other mirrors, Protestant leaders or others that set up their own standards. No, we have to go back to God's word. Use that as a standard to judge things by using His perfect law of liberty. That's the only one. If we were keeping God's perfect law of liberty, our society would be so different. We wouldn't have this news that now, this past week in Colombia, three men got married. You think that would be something allowable in God's law? Of course not! And yet, that's a Catholic country. Overwhelmingly, probably over 80% are of the Catholic faith, and it's just being allowed more and more. Notice what it says in the contemporary English version, Romans 8, 6-8. It says, if our minds are ruled by our desires, we will die. But if our minds are ruled by the Spirit, God's Holy Spirit, we will have life and peace. Our desires fight against God because they do not and cannot obey God's laws. If we follow our desires, we cannot please God.

So we need that spiritual mirror. We cannot throw it out the window because it shows us our flaws and defects.

So let's go to the second characteristic of a mirror. It can reveal the reality of things, but it cannot remove the spots or the defects that it sees. So if somebody has a smudge or some defect, well, you can't wipe it out this way. It's not going to work. The same way God's laws cannot forgive sin.

That's why we need Christ's sacrifice. That is the only way to remove spiritual sins. God's laws are not equipped by themselves to forgive spiritual sin. Let's read Romans 8, verses 3 and 4.

Romans 8, verses 3 and 4.

It says, For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, the carnal mind, God did by sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, on account of sin, He condemned sin in the flesh, that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit. So Christ's sacrifice is what enables true forgiveness of sin.

I'm going to read it to you here in the New Living Translation. It says, So God did what the law could not do. He sent His own Son in a body like the bodies we sinners have, and in that body God declared an end to sin's control over us by giving His Son as a sacrifice for our sins. He did this so that the just requirement of the law would be fully satisfied for us, who no longer follow our sinful nature, but instead follow the Spirit. So you see, you still have the law and the requirements of the law, but through the sacrifice of Christ, it can be fulfilled. It can be satisfied.

And we understand that under the Old Covenant, they only had animal sacrifices, which were symbolic of the coming redemption through Jesus Christ. Those animal sacrifices could not eliminate or erase the spiritual sin that the Israelites committed at that time. And so let's look at the two covenants under this light. They can reveal sin here, the first one, but it cannot erase sin. 2 Corinthians chapter 3. 2 Corinthians chapter 3. And I know that we have rehearsed some of these things, but this is very important because some people will try to persuade you that, no, don't talk about God's laws. Don't talk about this. Let's just talk about grace. Let's talk about forgiveness. But if you throw the mirror out, the forgiveness becomes permissiveness. It allows grace to become license and licentiousness, as the Bible brings out there in Jude 3 and 4 verses. So here in 2 Corinthians 3, this is an important chapter to understand what Paul is talking about. Let's start in verse 7. It says, But if the ministry of death, written and engraved on stones, was glorious, so that the children of Israel could not look steadily at the face of Moses because of the glory of his countenance, which glory was passing away, how will the ministry of the Spirit not be more glorious? So again, Paul wasn't talking against God's laws and what was given at Mount Sinai, but that wasn't complete. It wasn't enough. And even if Moses came down with the two tablets of the law and his face was shining, that they had to put a veil over it. So again, he is not demeaning or denigrating God's law at all, but just showing there is something superior to that. He goes on to say, Verse 9, For if the ministry of condemnation had glory, the ministry of righteousness exceeds much more in glory. And so that first administration of the first covenant meant people died. You got stoned for transgressions. It was a ministry of condemnation. You didn't have a choice of the matter. You had the judges of Israel. And if you committed a certain sin and the law said that that person was to be put to death, there was no quibbling. There was no appeals. That was the administration of death. So it was very strict because you had carnal-minded Israelites. You did not have spirit-filled Israelites then, except for those like Moses and Joshua, who God specially selected. So he goes on to say, Verse 11 says, For if what is passing away was glorious, what remains is much more glorious. Therefore, since we have such hope, we use great boldness of speech, unlike Moses, who put a veil over his face so that the children of Israel could not look steadily at the end of what was passing away. Because eventually that shining manifestation went away. It was just temporary. He says, So the Jews, they're still under the Old Covenant. They still technically have the death sentence. And that's why they killed Jesus Christ. And this is a sentence that has been carried out. Now, the Pharisees, they watered down a bit. So now, under Judaism, they don't just go out and stone somebody. But all of this, the Pharisees had to come up with certain exceptions to the rules and make things a lot stricter. But it was the administration of death. We have to understand that for many of those transgressions. So he goes on to say, Verse 15, But even to this day when Moses is read, a veil lies on their heart. They still are carnally minded. They don't have God's Spirit. And so they just follow the physical part of the law without understanding the spiritual. He says, You can understand the spiritual dimension of God's law. Now, the Lord is the Spirit. And so it's talking about here, Christ sending that spirit. And He was, and He is Spirit.

And where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty. The same word that James used, the perfect law of liberty. Yes. Then we can have the right thoughts, the right actions, the right way to please God. Continuing on, it says, It causes that. The Holy Spirit is slowly causing us to think more like God and think more like Jesus Christ. And so it's a process. It starts with the stages in baptism and then goes forward. Now, you're supposed to be transforming yourself more and more into the image of Jesus Christ. Now, we have long ways to go. And like I mentioned, it will only be at the resurrection when Christ comes back, that we will be able to see Him as He is. Because right now, we're pretty fallible people. God's Spirit still does not control a great part of our minds and hearts. But we are making that effort. We are striving to do so. Notice now in Hebrews 9. Hebrews 9. It's so wonderful when we have the freedom of God's Spirit to guide us and the Scriptures open up. And they all fall into place. We don't have to be in this tug of war of trying to put grace against law and faith against work. No, they all work together. You need faith and you need works. You need grace and you need law. But every part has a role to carry out. Notice Hebrews 9. Talking about the sacrifices in the first covenant. It said, verse 9, It was symbolic for the present time in which both gifts and sacrifices are offered, which cannot make Him who performed the service perfect in regard to the conscience. Your sins are really not forgiven through animal sacrifices.

It only concerned with foods and drinks, various washings and fleshly ordinances imposed until the time of Reformation, until this new covenant would come in. But Christ came as high priest of the good things to come, with the greater and more perfect tabernacle, not made with hands, that is, not of this creation, nor with the blood of goats and calves, but with His own blood He entered the most holy place once for all, having obtained eternal redemption. For the blood of bulls and goats and the ashes of a heifer, sprinkling the unclean sanctifies for the purifying of the flesh, how much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without spot to God, cleanse your conscience from dead works to serve the living God? Let me go on to verse 15. And for this reason He is the mediator of the new covenant, by means of death, for the redemption of the transgressions under the first covenant, that those who are called may receive the promise of the eternal inheritance. So in a sense, the old covenant was the first stage, and that should lead you to the second stage. They don't work against each other, but it's just that the first stage was not complete. It was to lead us to the second stage.

I'd like to read it here in the New Living Translation, Hebrews 9, 9-12. It says, This is an illustration pointing to the present time, for the gifts and sacrifices that the priests offer are not able to cleanse the consciences of the people who bring them. For that old system deals only with food and drink and various cleansing ceremonies. Physical regulations that were, in effect, only until a better system could be established. So Christ has now become the high priest over all the good things that have come. He has entered the greater, more perfect tabernacle in heaven, which was not made by human hands, and is not part of this created world.

With his own blood, not the blood of goats and calves, he entered the most holy place once for all time and secured our redemption forever. So again, that gives it a little more clearer language. Now, it is true that when Christ comes back, we're going to have sacrifices in Jerusalem, and we're going to have a priesthood. But that's not those animals' sacrifices. The intention is not for them to forgive sins, but it's to remind people of Christ's sacrifice.

That's a very vivid view. When you see those animals with their blood being shed, it's going to get the people's attention in the millennium that somebody died for you much more than an animal. And it was, God, the Word who sacrificed for us. We have said that maybe if people sinned in the Church and then you'd have to say, well, go now, you've got to buy a cow. Go out there and sacrifice it. I wonder how many people would just repeat doing it because they think they can get away with it.

There's no real problem. Oh, I just asked God for forgiveness, that's it. And if you had to really pay a price for that, and I guess a cow is worth over $1,000, you buy them, boy, that's going to wipe out your pocket money, change real fast. And so in the millennium, it's going to remind people of the cost of things. Now, God has not desired for us to do things physically that way.

And I'm so thankful. I mean, how many cows would each one of us have to buy, right? Because we sin, we commit problems, and we have grudges, and we have to overcome things. I'm glad we don't have to have a cow or an ox or some lamb every time. We'd all have to have big farms out there, right? And so anyways, the point is this, that the Old Covenant was to show the price and that blood was going to be spilled for our sins and sacrifices.

Now, God's laws are going to continue forward. They are the perfect law of liberty. The sacrifices, we understand. They were just for a time to point to Jesus Christ. And once Jesus Christ is our sacrifice, well, we don't have to go through animal sacrifices anymore. Notice in Hebrews chapter 10, just the next chapter over, in verse 15 through 17, here we see the spiritual dimension of God's laws.

They're going to be written in our hearts. Hebrews 10, verse 15 through 17, it says, But the Holy Spirit also witnesses to us, for after he has said before, This is the covenant that I will make with them after those days. Says the Lord, I will put my laws into their hearts, and in their minds I will write them.

Then he adds, Their sins and their lawless needs I will remember no more. And so he's talking about that under the new covenant, the purpose is to write God's laws into our hearts and minds and understand the physical and the spiritual.

They go together. They mesh. They harmonize. Now I'd like to mention a third point about a mirror, and that is how God's spiritual mirror will be used in the millennium. Because in this life, very few are really going to take it and appreciate it, value it, and use it. But in the millennium, in that sense, everybody's going to have their spiritual mirror. People are not going to be hostile. They're not going to go against God's laws.

Notice a bit of this in picture, how it is when people, the joy of understanding what the real purpose of God's laws are. Notice in Isaiah 25, verse 6, we read this scripture many times during the Feast of Tabernacles, because it's describing God's banquets during the millennium.

This is the first one. Probably it will be the Feast of Tabernacles, or maybe it will be the first cycle, but He will bring people to Jerusalem. And it says in verse 6, And in this mountain, talking about Jerusalem, the Lord of hosts will make for all people a feast of choiced pieces, a feast of wines on the lees, of fat things full of marrow.

These are very delicious meats of well-refined wines on the lees. And He will destroy on this mountain the surface of the covering cast over all people and the veil that is spread over all nations. So that resistance and obstinance and rebellion against God's laws will be removed. Of course, Satan will be removed. That is going to be one of the most important elements, which is like removing an amplifier from a microphone.

Well, you can't really talk very much in the same power. And Satan is the amplifier of sin in this world. He doesn't create it all, but boy, he amplifies and multiplies its effects. And so it says here, talk about Christ, He will swallow up death forever, and the Lord God will wipe away tears from all faces. The rebuke of His people, He will take away from all the earth. For the Lord has spoken, and it will be said in that day, Behold, this is our God.

We have waited for Him, and He will save us. This is the Lord. We have waited for Him. We will be glad and rejoice in His salvation. So people will no longer throw away. They will want God's spiritual mirror.

They will not have that rebellion and that resistance that we find today. That's why it's becoming more futile, more difficult to get this gospel to the world, because the heart has hardened much more. And with prosperity and a good life, there are a lot of things to entertain yourself, and many people have taken their eyes off of the spiritual elements. Maybe 50 years ago, people had to struggle more, and so they had to depend more on God. And their lives were more focused on religious elements. Now you're having to fight, and you have to compete with all of this mass media that bombards people day and night.

So of course, when you talk about God's spiritual mirror, boy, no, please, let's talk about something pleasant, something nice, something that makes me feel good and not bad. Let's go on. When it discusses here another scripture, Micah 4. Micah 4, talking about the millennium again, when God's laws will be upheld and appreciated and loved. Micah 4, verse 1, it says, Now it shall come to pass in the latter days, that the mountain of the Lord's house shall be established on the top of the mountains, and shall be exalted above the hills, and people shall flow to it.

Now people are flowing out of it. They don't want anything to do with God's ways. We've got hostile world in the Middle East. Every day it seems like there's a terrorist attack now going on. Just had one this morning over there in Pakistan, or well, it must have been yesterday, we got the news this morning. It says, That's not the attitude of people today. You think people are saying, oh, let's go to the Sabbath and let's learn about God's laws and how we can use this spiritual mirror in a better way.

No, people are not interested in that. It's a very few and far and between. Continuing on, it says, Why? Because people are going to love the spiritual mirror. And the spiritual mirror says, thou shall not kill, thou shall not commit murder. Thou shall not have war, thou shall not take the life of other people. Boy, what a world when that will be respected. And then it goes on to say, verse 4, And the word shalom means peace, and that actually means this type of peace.

Peace from hostility, peace from aggression, peace from evil. That's what it's talking about. And God's perfect law of liberty brings us that type of peace where you just feel inner peace, you're at home, you can focus on the good things and God's things and not have all of these distractions and all of these thoughts that just flood in and try to do damage and get us away from God's ways. That's why people are enslaved. Once you come to the church, you start gaining your liberty. But you don't start with spiritual liberty. You start from spiritual slavery, and it's overcoming that slavery, gaining liberty day by day of your mind, of your heart, and be able to fully apply God's laws to live without those distortions and all of those distractions and all of those evil thoughts.

That's what true Christian liberty is all about. Those who can experience it are lucky people. They are blessed. Continuing on in Jeremiah, let's go to Jeremiah 36, verse 26. Jeremiah 36, verse 26 tells us the change of heart. Jeremiah 36, verse 26, it says, did I get this right?

I don't see it here. I think it was Ezekiel. I'm sorry, Ezekiel. I do have that one, but the one about the heart of Flint. I thought it was here. Anybody have that one? Ezekiel 36. I had Jeremiah 31, and then I thought it was in the same book, but actually Jeremiah is Ezekiel 36, verse 26. Here it is. It says, and I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you. I will take the heart of stone out of your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. I will put my spirit within you and cause you to walk in my statutes, and you will keep my judgments and do them. So that's the purpose of the New Covenant.

And so, as we wind down, let's look at four action steps. Let's look at the practical part. We talked about the theoretical, okay? What does God's Word say? How do we understand the two packs and how we should focus? Okay, now action steps. Number one, become inoculated against attacking the spiritual mirror of God's law. Now, inoculation or vaccination, when you get it, it helps you avoid viruses and avoid all kinds of infections, bacterial infections. Why? Because you have a little bit of that dead microorganism that your body can create antibodies for.

And if we appreciate God's spiritual mirror and never disparage it, never attack it, that's why you have to have that inoculation, that vaccination, because many people are going to be tempted to drop God's laws. I've seen it. I've seen people that they don't have the vaccination. They still are subject to falling into that trap of attacking God's law, that somehow it's evil, that it's unnecessary, that it's not good for you.

Notice in Romans 7, verse 10. Romans 7, verse 10. Paul loved God's law. That's what he says in Romans 7. Romans 7, verse 10. It says, For the death, I'm reading here, 710, and the commandment, which was to bring life, God's law, I found to bring death. Attack me. I still have that human nature I'm fighting. For sin, taking occasion, by the commandment, deceived me, and by it killed me. Therefore, the law is holy, and the commandment holy, and just and good.

So he's never going to attack the spiritual mirror. He knows it's our carnal nature that's the problem. That's the way you inoculate and vaccinate yourself. It's our carnal nature that we have to get rid of, not God's spiritual mirror. As he goes on to say in verse 14, For we know that the law is spiritual, but I am carnal, so to understand, we are always going to have this struggle as long as we're human beings.

So again, make sure we appreciate that spiritual mirror. Never let anybody take that away from us or convince us otherwise. The second action step, use the spiritual mirror daily, not weekly. Ask, am I conforming my mind to it? Are we yielding to it, or are we stubbornly resisting it? Examine ourselves. Spiritual mirror is not something you just put in a drawer and forget about it. No, we've got to look at ourselves as spiritual mirror. Examine ourselves, our interior life. What are my thoughts? What are my attitudes? Are there grudges? Are there hateful thoughts?

Are there lustful thoughts? Are there things that I've got to overcome? Number three, recognize the mirror's limitations. Yes, we need God's laws, but we need God's mercy through the sacrifice of His Son. We've got to watch out for self-righteousness while we start waving this spiritual mirror toward others and trying to find the standards and judging others instead of examining ourselves more. So we have to recognize the mirror's limitations. We need God's laws and God's mercy through the sacrifice of His Son and God's Holy Spirit.

Ask for God's Holy Spirit more in us. And the fourth and last point, use the spiritual mirror mostly on self, not on others. Be more tolerant of others and less of self. I don't go around and be looking at all the smudges of others.

No, I'm trying to find my smudges, what I need to remove instead of using it to point to all the others and feel, oh, I'm just fine. I don't have much to do. But boy, look at all of these other faults and people. That's not the purpose of this. The spiritual mirror is to be used mostly on self. So in conclusion, we need to use God's mirror as it was intended. No, the advantages of having it, but also its limits. I'm going to read to you the last scripture, Psalms 119.45. It has become one of my favorite ones.

In prayer, I remember this one. Psalms 119.45. David says, and I will walk at liberty, for I seek your precepts. Yes, those who seek, following God's spiritual mirror, will find liberty wherever they go. In the Good News Bible, it says, I will live in perfect freedom because I try to obey your teachings.

Yes, we're not perfect. That's why we get into all this trouble many times. But we seek God's precepts, teachings. So yes, God's law is the perfect law of liberty. And don't let anyone ever convince you otherwise.