"Mirrors"

"Mirrors"

   The best way to know ourselves involves the knowledge of God.  He originally made us in His image for the purpose of reflecting His person, character, nature, and way.  He made us to be mirrors of Himself.  The entrance of sin into the world gravely damaged this primary reason for humanity's being.  In Christ, however, God begins a redeeming work in all who believe in the Lord Jesus Christ that will ultimately result in our conformity to the spiritual and moral image of our Maker.  "When He shall appear, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is" (I John 3:2).

   Mirrors exist to reflect the image of things other than themselves.  We exist to "bear the image of the Heavenly" (I Corinthians 15:49).  God made us as conscious beings who have a role of response to Him regarding how well we serve as reflections of His Person.  This involves the knowledge of who He is, and the knowledge of who we are.  The former comes first.  Since He is the object that casts the reflection, as it were, we must increasingly discover His character and way if we are to accurately fulfill our Image-reflecting reason for being.  First, we must know that this why we exist.  Then we must grow in the knowledge of the Lord Jesus in order to faithfully "walk even as He walked" (I John 2:6).  Thereby He engages our "fearfully and wonderfully made" human faculties for their primary purpose of displaying God's fearful and wonderful eternal being (Psalm 139;14).  Whether they realize it or not (and most often they likely won't), others should see the Creator in the particular aspect of creation we are.  Our attitudes, words, deeds, and relating to people serve as the lamps of His Light when the Spirit of God ignites our human faculties, and then sends us forth to illuminate the darkness of a fallen world.  "The spirit of man is the candle of the Lord" (Proverbs 20:27).

   The truth of our existence as mirrors beckons us to look upward, outward, and away from ourselves if we are to accurately know ourselves.  Mirrors concern themselves with the image they bear, seeking to absorb the image they must reflect, and then to send it forth in accurate display.  Theology, the knowledge of God, precedes anthropology, the knowledge of humanity.  In fact, the study of God constitutes the only way we can rightly study humanity.  I will never know myself while seeking to know myself.  Such discovery only results from seeking to know the Image I exist to bear.  Blessed relief descends upon those who devote themselves to this reality of who God is, and who we are in relationship to Him.  He is the Image.  We are His mirrors.  Only in the light of such Truth can we know Him, and ourselves.

"Beholding as in the glass the glory of the Lord, we are changed into the same image, from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord."

(II Corinthians 3:18)

Weekly Memory Verse

   As for God, His way is perfect.

(II Samuel 22:31)

   

    

    

   

   

   

   

    

    

    

    

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