Deceiving ourselves

James 1: 22Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says. 23Anyone who listens to the word but does not do what it says is like a man who looks at his face in a mirror 24and, after looking at himself, goes away and immediately forgets what he looks like.

John 1:1In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

Ok, I sincerely doubt I'm skilled or educated enough to go into much of this, and the idea of Jesus being the Word and the Bible being the Word always gets my brain a little twisted, but I want to question something anyway. From these two verses could I easily assume that if God speaks to me and I don't do it, I'm deceiving myself?
And, if I am, what is my deception. Deceive by definition is giving a false impression, so, what impression is it that I'm giving myself? Is it that I'm fooling myself into believing that I'm actually saved when I'm not?
I've finally grown past the point of doubting my salvation, but I am constantly asking God to somehow keep me growing. I was talking to my brother the other day about whether or not I would grow as much as I could if I don't take all the steps He has ordained for me. For example if He wants me to work at McDonalds instead of the job I'm at, then could it be that the specific people I am intended to meet, the specific lessons He had for me to learn there, I would not learn? By walking in my own plans, am I on course to become less of the person He is creating in me?
A cook knows, you can tweak recipes quite a bit, add a hint of this, a dash of that, and as long as the key ingredients are the same, you'll be just fine. But there is a perfect recipe for each of our lives that will give the most fantastic outcome, and I want as many of the perfect ingredients as possible. So I guess I better get on track, huh :)


James 1:25But the man who looks intently into the perfect law that gives freedom, and continues to do this, not forgetting what he has heard, but doing it—he will be blessed in what he does.
26If anyone considers himself religious and yet does not keep a tight rein on his tongue, he deceives himself and his religion is worthless. 27Religion 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