In the month of September, we'd like to change this devotional a bit. We believe people are changed when they read and meditate on God's Word. The Bible has power. So this month, we are asking you to let God's Word wash over you, infiltrate your heart and affect your actions. May you be blessed by the reading of his Word.

Today's passage is James 1:22-27.

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.