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Still in the mirror
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Tuesday, June, 29, 2010
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by John Fischer
"Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says. Those who listen to the word but do not do what it says are like people who look at their faces in a mirror and, after looking at themselves, go away and immediately forget what they look like" (James 1: 22-23).
We're going to stay a little longer with this verse. Yesterday we determined that people forget what they look like in the mirror (of the word of truth) because they don't like what they see. So they fabricate a false version of themselves, which they choose to believe over the true one. But the problem is, they are usually the only ones to buy the fabricated version. What most people see is closer to what every one of us sees in the mirror. This is why we are usually the last to know what jerks we are.
It's important to remember what we see when we look in the mirror. That will humble us and make us more dependent on the Lord.
The man who remembers what he looks like when he walks away from the mirror is someone who will not think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but neither will he think of himself as less that he ought to think either. As one of our readers commented yesterday, when we see ourselves in the mirror, we also see the Lord's hand on our shoulder. Which is a way of saying we see Him too, and we see what He is making us to be.
And remember, all this goes back to hearing the word of God and doing something about it. This is serious business. We need to be doers of the word and not hearers only.
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