When you look in the mirror, what do you see?
Are you looking at someone who could really use a miracle?
Maybe you have been attending church and reading your Bible, just to find yourself exactly the same as you were years ago.
Did you know that Satan—the enemy of your soul—doesn’t mind if you attend church? Even if you are in that seat every time the door is open, your enemy doesn’t mind at all.
Just as long as you don’t gain any spiritual ground from being there.
And our enemy doesn’t even mind if we read and study our Bibles. We can study for hours, take notes, and highlight until our pens are dry.
Just as long we have the wrong attitude.
That “take-it-or-leave-it” attitude, which tells us to take God’s word to heart—only if we like what we are hearing.
Do people really do that? If we are honest, I think we can admit that we have that tendency, if we allow ourselves to.
This is that age-old struggle. We can either hear God’s Word, and hold on to what we have heard. Or instead, allow God’s word to slip away, into the shadows of forgetfulness.
It all feels like some last days deception, doesn’t it? And you, my friend, must not waste your life being a part of it.
Because God wants you to look in that mirror, and see a miracle.
Take a few minutes to read this, and allow me to show you how.
THE COMFORTER WILL TEACH YOU ALL THINGS
“If you love Me, keep My commandments. And I will pray the Father, and He will give you another Helper, that He may abide with you forever—the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees Him nor knows Him; but you know Him, for He dwells with you and will be in you.”
“But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, He will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all things that I said to you.”
John 14:15-17, 26
If you are acquainted with the account of the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, on the feast day of Pentecost (Acts chapter 2) you know that Jesus certainly kept his promise. John 14:17 declares this same Holy Spirit to be the Spirit of truth known by all true believers, and dwelling within each one of us.
So it is essential for you and I to believe this promised One actually resides and abides within us. He is Almighty God, and should be thought of as no less. Although He often seems to take the role of a servant, just as Jesus did while on earth.
But we should not make the mistake, of thinking this One within us is somehow subservient to us. John goes on to explain, this Comforter from the Father is here to keep us, and to teach us all things. And He, as the teacher, must also be the leader.
Truly, to participate in such leadership is a great privilege. And if you and I can take this attitude, to listen well, we will most certainly learn of Him.
COMPARING SPIRITUAL THINGS WITH SPIRITUAL
“Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might know the things that have been freely given to us by God. These things we also speak, not in words which man’s wisdom teaches but which the Holy Spirit teaches, comparing spiritual things with spiritual.”
1 Corinthians 2:12-13
How easy it is for any of us to become sidetracked by a confused and frustrated world. Or to momentarily forget who we are, within this unseen kingdom come down from heaven. And how easy it is to fall back upon our own best initiatives, instead of relying on God’s perfect and powerful promises.
King David declared (in Psalms 119:105) “Your word is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path.” And David surely must have known the value of a well-lit pathway, as he walked along those wilderness back roads in such deserted and dangerous places.
But today, so many of us seem to be leaning upon our own understanding of things, without acknowledging God in all of our ways. (Proverbs 3:5)
The verse above reminds us that we, as believers in Christ, have not received the Spirit of the world, but God’s own Spirit. And the very truth of Almighty God is available to us daily by His own wondrous warrior, the Holy Spirit.
We dare not mingle what is holy (righteous things) with what is of the world (lifeless philosophies). That’s just comparing apples to oranges. It’s never accurate. For doing so only leads the “mixer” down a dimly lit pathway to confusion.
Comparing spiritual things with spiritual is a must, now more than ever before. And is a mandate from God (I believe) for all sober and sensitive hearers of God’s living Word today.
GOD’S WORD IS A GIFT OF LOVE
“For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek, for the same Lord over all is rich to all who call upon Him.”
“But they have not all obeyed the gospel. For Isaiah says, ‘Lord, who has believed our report?’ So then faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.”
“But to Israel he says:
‘All day long I have stretched out My hands
To a disobedient and contrary people.’”
Romans 10:12, 16-17, 21
What amazing times we are now living in, as we watch our last-days world go spiraling out of control. And along with it come those ever changing rules, regulations, and restrictions. Sometimes it’s hard to keep up with them all.
Words and warnings seem to be everywhere. Taunting us. Troubling us. Telling us to be afraid. The oddest of ideas abound. Fantasies arise, to be the trends of the day.
Blah, blah, blah and more blah. In short, words now seem to have little value. So it becomes easier to ignore what we no longer really hear.
But God’s Word is an oasis, among the deserts of idle talk. And becomes a blessing for those who hear it. But to devalue its purpose, is to devalue the One who gave it.
The apostle Paul spoke of Israel. For they had certainly long heard the message. But still, they often refused to heed the message they were hearing.
How easy it is for any of us, well intentioned as we might be, to seek our own way, instead of God’s perfect words of truth and peace.
“Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and comes down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow of turning.”
“So then, my beloved brethren, let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath;
for the wrath of man does not produce the righteousness of God.”
James 1:17, 19-20
So when it comes to God’s unchanging words of truth, we must take care to listen well. His words are a living lifeline, the “servant’s manual”,the power source, for surviving the “outages” of a modern day, melt-down society.
James explains (in vs. 17) Every good gift (anything worth having or hearing) is a gift from our heavenly Father above. A gift is something precious, bestowed in love. We do not earn it, or often even deserve it.
But still, there it is. God’s amazing love letter to us, the Bible, written down for His church. So precious, and wonderful. And waiting for us each new day, as we awake to the wealth of discovering it.
So James cautions us that we—who have this gift of love—must
- Be swift to hear (delight in the fresh word God is giving you this new day),
- Slow to speak (careful not to judge too quickly what you may not yet fully understand)
- And slow to wrath (to forgo being upset.)
- Instead, allowing God’s own word and work to play out in our new day. (Chances are it will make a lot more sense at the day’s end, than it did at its beginning.)
DOERS OF THE WORD, NOT HEARERS ONLY
“But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves.”
James 1:22
No doubt we are living in a fast-paced, chaotic moment of time. People don’t seem to listen well anymore. Or learn well, even from their mistakes. And worse, when mistakes aren’t often admitted.
But we as believers, must not imitate such reckless patterns. Nor can we afford the luxury of loose living (that is, to indulge in a pretense of hearing, without any serious intentions of following through, to do what we have witnessed to be true).
Brother James (in typical James-fashion) gets us right to the point: Hearing God’s word without doing God’s word will surely bring in a self-deception. That’s scary to imagine. But let’s try to imagine it anyway.
It may start out with just some small loss of spiritual cognitive skills: The mind begins to drift, uncontrolled. Undisciplined. A little dimness, instead of light. Soon, less attention leads to more distraction.
The mind begins to shift, away from the message and the meaning of God’s truth. And before one knows it, that Word that was sown is quickly stolen away from the heart.
Finally, imagine some progressive case of spiritual dementia coming over the individual, as God’s words of truth are no longer recognized as anything of particular importance. He or she finally loses the ability to realize what vital role their lives might play in the lives of others.
It is a hearing without the doing, as the self-deception settles in. A loss of awareness to the purposes of God. Or the notion, that the hearer is not accountable for what he has heard.
LIKE LOOKING INTO A NATURAL MIRROR
“For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man observing his natural face in a mirror;
for he observes himself, goes away, and immediately forgets what kind of man he was.”
James 1:23-24
Next, James illustrates what hearing apart from doing really looks like: A man “sees” himself there, in his mirror of reality. But then he leaves and immediately loses his ability to remember what he has just witnessed to be true.
Spiritually speaking, God’s Word is like a mirror. It reveals what sort of person we are (or we can be). But it isn’t just a negative revelation, pointing out our faults and failures.
It could do that. But just as important, God’s amazing words of life influence the open-hearted hearer to come up higher. To dare to entertain the possibility that an Almighty God desires to do great things in and through us.
Many of those “great things” may be the everyday small things, so necessary for taking up our cross in faith, and serving an undeserving world.
But the forgetful hearer will seldom know the joys of following through to such “doing.”
Forgetting who we are in Christ can be a dangerous place to dwell: to have heard, but not to have engaged the heart. To have momentarily held the Word, without actually believing it, or receiving it down into our being.
“But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as by the Spirit of the Lord.”
2 Corinthians 3:18
Do we really hope to walk in true liberty? Then we will need to openly and honestly stand before that “mirror” of our Lord’s own likeness. There, He challenges us. There He enables us to be changed from glory to glory, even as His Holy Spirit reveals to us the beauty, the blessing, and the magnificence of our Lord’s own glorious image!
So, spiritually speaking, what sort of person should you or I see in that mirror of reality? Hopefully, in humility, we might be moved to behold that “whosoever” within each one of us. That same reachable person who first came to the cross of Christ Jesus. And died with Him.
Remember it? Your very first day with Jesus? How hopeful. How humbling. How helpless you were, as you gladly fell upon his mercy. And how anxious you were to be forgiven. And free!
Now, as you re-live your very first beginnings in Christ, let your mind be renewed by God’s own “newness” of His Word. And hold out your heart to Him, just as you did then.
You’ll soon rediscover that same teachable servant within. Still destined to do your Lord’s good pleasure, and to bring Him the glory that is due His Name.
“Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil.”
“And take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God;”
Ephesians 6:11, 17
Each of us has a personal role in guarding against the forgetfulness that creeps into our everyday lives. Instead, the focus of our attention must be upon God’s eternal kingdom.
Then, no matter how rough or ridiculous the road of “now” may become, our eyes of hope are always fixed on finding and doing our Lord’s will.
LOOKING INTO THE PERFECT LAW OF LIBERTY
“But he who looks into 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.”
James 1:25
Hearing and doing (fulfilling) God’s words of truth has a lot to do with perceptions. It takes faith to believe that words, written down nearly two thousand years ago, can actually become the lifeline of the living today.
Only a loving God would orchestrate such wonders! And He does, when we take care to hear Him with an open heart, and allow Him to do the doing in and through us, to perform His sovereign pleasure.
The word “doer” or “doers” (from vs. 22) is the Greek word meaning (believe it or not) POET. It translates to represent the idea of a performer (or performance).
To my understanding, the idea here is illustrating how the Holy Spirit, within each true believer in Christ, has the ability to orchestrate God’s perfect timing and purposes, through our continual and attentive looking into what is termed The Perfect Law Of Liberty.
That word “Looking” here in the Greek is “Parakupto,” which proves to be quite interesting. It means: to stand beside, or to lean over. To peer within, or to stoop down (for a better look).
It was also used when Peter arose and ran to the sepulcher, and stooped down to discover the linen grave clothes of the risen Savior.
So we, as hearers and doers of God’s Word must, in like manner, stoop down or be stretched forth, to get a better view of the realities of God’s purposes and power. Or to prostrate ourselves, in order to receive what we could not yet see. To observe and discover what we could not know before.
The word “perfect” is the Greek word “Teleios,” which means: Completeness. Finished. Brought to its end. Mature. Full of age. It comes from the word “telos,” meaning: A conclusion or termination point.
The word “law” is the Greek word “Nomos,” meaning: To parcel out as food, through the idea of prescriptive usage. (Sounds like daily bread to me). It is an essential regulation or principle.
Even that little word “of” has its own important meaning: “originating from or pertaining to.”
And the word “liberty” is the Greek word “Eleutheria,” which means: Freedom (in Christ, as opposed to being a slave to Sin). Or freedom from bondage. (God, having written the manual for the emancipated slave, our very own Book of Freedoms, has given to us His written truth—the Bible).
Now we, who were once afar off, and separated from God’s holy purposes, are now able to “know and to go”, being made aware of our rights, privileges, and purpose, as citizens of this eternal kingdom of heaven and earth.
WHAT THE PERFECT LAW OF LIBERTY DOES
By reading the Word of God, we now have the righteous privilege of peering down into, and humbly partaking of God’s revelation of Completeness, as we discover His pre-proclaimed will for our lives—one daily dose at a time.
Like bread, it fills us and feeds us. It liberates us and frees us. Sent down from the Father of Freedom Himself, that we might hear, and know, and do His perfect will.
This is way more than just knowledge gathering. Or mere curiosity. It is the heart-skipping experience of knowing as we are known, even in some small but significant way. It is the peering into, and the promise of knowing God, (and proving Him) through the many-faceted mirror of His eternal Word.
Now imagine what this Holy Spirit creates within you. You and He. This dynamic duo of hearing and doing. This God-ordained partnership of perceiving, believing, and receiving what God openly offers you.
You, the “hearer”, sit down before the Teacher. And in perfect Holy Spirit fashion (brought on by your willing obedience to learn of Him), He begins to bring you onto that stage of discovery. He does this perfectly, revealing and reminding you of God’s truth, (that you have heard before, and are now hearing afresh).
He poetically interprets and interfaces His truth with the very person that you are, to bring about the very best of the You God has created. He, who has become your closest friend, sent from the Father, not only knows His position well, but loves His place in you.
He becomes the “doer” first—introducing you to what you cannot find or accomplish alone. He is your Helper, your Instructor, and your Encourager—to begin. And to begin again. He is the Revealer of the why and the how of what you are hearing.
Poetically, He poses the path before you, in well-placed terms you can understand. Within that innermost part of your being, you are now seeing the Word as well as hearing it. All of your senses seem to be employed, as He brings you into that fullness of words that will never, ever pass away.
You’ll hear them. And you’ll see them. You’ll touch them, and be touched by them. And tearfully, you’ll taste and see that your Lord is so good!
Your entire being is activated, to bring you into the performance of a lifetime. Your life—now being formed by what has been sown—now being known within you. Now being drawn in and changed, by your heart of obedience.
And what has been heard can now be faithfully done. Joyfully accomplished through Christ Jesus!
Suddenly, all things seem possible, with God’s wondrous Word working within you! You are no longer just the hearer of good information. But a doer and a pursuer of God’s own purposes.
You look into the mirror again—and find yourself staring at His image—the image of glory that He intended for you to be!
It is the miracle in the mirror. You!
This reflection of God’s own image, upon your own. Sent and received, and set apart within you.
Oh friend, you will see the miracle. You will look and see your Lord and God before you—within the magnificent revelation of His Word.
The Word that was made flesh. Magnified by his Spirit.
Unforgettable—because you chose and determined not to forget it!
The Living Word—living—in you.
The Holy Bible, New King James Version, Copyright © 1982 Thomas Nelson. All rights reserved.