Pollution control
Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says. Anyone who listens to the word but does not do what it says is like someone who looks at his face in a mirror and, after looking at himself, goes away and immediately forgets what he looks like. But whoever looks intently into the perfect law that gives freedom, and continues in it—not forgetting what they have heard, but doing it—they will be blessed in what they do.
Those who consider themselves religious and yet do not keep a tight rein on their tongues deceive themselves, and their religion is worthless. Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world. (NIV) James 1:22-27
Pollution can come in many forms but perhaps it can be broken down into two major groups: pollution that is easy to detect and pollution that isn't. In the group that is easy to detect are things like oil spills, everyone can see them and we all know it's a bad thing. Those that aren't so easy to detect are things like radiation, unless you have special equipment it's very hard to detect until the damage is already done. It would be obvious to anyone not to go swimming in water filled with an oil spill but without proper equipment, it wouldn't be so obvious to stay out of an area filled with radiation.
As Christians, it's important for us to realize that our enemy is an expert in deceitfulness, and will use any tactics possible to draw us away from God and into a life of sin. The devil is a mastermind in spreading spiritual pollution. We may think that his schemes will be obvious and we won't fall for them and sometimes the pollution in this world is obvious but other times it is so subtle that if we aren't prepared we fall for the trap.
The passage in James above lists at least two areas that can be weak spots in our fight against the pollution of this world: controlling our anger and taming our tongue.
Anger is dangerous and if we aren't careful it can be like that undetectable pollution. Anger is a very strong emotion that impairs our judgment and can cause us to do things that we know are wrong. It is closely related to taming our tongue because, in our anger, we often say things that can damage others. I'm sure all of us can recall a time when someone has hurt us with their words. That person may have apologized and we may have forgiven them but the damage done may always remain to some extent.
The trick to avoiding these types of pollution and all types of pollution is repeated over and over in the passage above. Verse 21: "accept the word", verse 22: "Do not merely listen to the word... Do what it says.", verse 25: " whoever looks intently into the perfect law... will be blessed in what they do." The answer for us is obvious, we must arm ourselves with the Word of God so we can detect and avoid the pollution of this world! We should not be like the one who looks into the mirror only to forget what we look like (James 1:24) but be willing to find and fix our faults by looking into the Word and applying it to our lives. This advise may seem obvious but yet we still struggle to carve out time in our lives to spend time in the Word. Brothers and Sisters we must commit to reading and applying it to our lives. This may be the most important defense against the enemy we have!