Read James 1:19-27
It's amazing how many "pearls of wisdom" are found in this short section of scripture.
Who among us wouldn't be better equipped for His service and more effective in our communication if we listened better and responded to inequities with anger much less frequently? The challenge that James presents in this passage is for us to be both hearers and doers of God's word.
We must always insure that the mirror we are looking into is God's word ("the perfect law of liberty") and not a substitutionary reflection offered by the world. Quite frankly, many of the natural mirrors we often like are those that reflect a distorted image of ourselves. The call to both internal purity (accomplished by the implanted word and the indwelling presence of the Holy Spirit) and externally focused sacrifice has always been at the very heart of God's will for His children.
Isaiah chapter 1:16-17 reads: "Wash yourselves, make yourselves clean; remove the evil of your deeds from My sight. Cease to do evil. Learn to do good; seek justice, reprove the ruthless, defend the orphan, plead for the widow." Perhaps these words articulated by Isaiah were an inspiration to James when he wrote, "Pure and undefiled religion in the sight of our God and our Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their distress, and to keep oneself unstained by the world." (James 1:27). So the whole of the matter is this:
"Hear AND Do".