The Special of the Day… From the Orange Moon Cafe…
"The Mirror of God"
"If we perceive ourselves as merely ourselves, rather than as a "new creature" indwelt and empowered by the Spirit of the Lord Jesus, we will not do because we do not know, or we do not remember our high calling to "walk, even as He walked."
The Apostle Paul and James unite to proclaim a wondrous and vital truth for every born again believer in the Lord Jesus Christ.
"Beholding as in a glass (mirror) 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).
"For if any be a hearer of the word, and not a doer, he is like unto a man beholding his natural face in a glass (mirror), for he beholdeth himself, and goeth his way, and straightway forgetteth what manner of man he was" (James 1:23-24).
Clearly, knowing and remembering what one sees in the mirror bears great significance for how one lives. Paul and James reference God's spiritual mirror, wherein believers must see ourselves as He sees us. This calls us to a view that often seems counterintuitive and hard to affirm: "Beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord." Or, "Christ in you, the hope of glory" (Colossians 1:27). Our Heavenly Father forever - and in this moment - views believers as the dwellingplace of His Son, based on the price of Christ's presence remitted on the cross of Calvary. "He hath made Him to be sin for us, who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him" (II Corinthians 5:21). Yes, the solemn truth is that to the degree our Father saw the Lord Jesus as our sin, He sees us as enrobed with the Lord Jesus' righteousness. In such holy light, we must view ourselves as He views us. Too much was suffered and sacrificed for any other perception of ourselves to serve as the reflection we see in the glass of God.
James tells us that forgetting the image we see in the mirror of God's Word results in our failing to be a "doer." Or, in the case of some Christians, it is not known that we are to see ourselves as spiritually united to Christ. In either case, if we perceive ourselves as merely ourselves, rather than as a "new creature" indwelt and empowered by the Spirit of the Lord Jesus, we will not do because we do not know, or we do not remember who and what we are in Him (II Corinthians 5:17). We will rather "walk as men," living as if Christ had not drawn nearer to us than our next breath, and as if He were not our "hope of glory." This can lead to the sad indictment of those who long ago ignored the Lord's presence and working: "He did not many mighty works there because of their unbelief" (Matthew 13:58).
In and of ourselves, we bear no capability for even the tiniest act of faithfulness to God. He therefore has not left us to the impotence of "in and of ourselves." He has rather become the very Life of our lives, to the degree that when we look into God's mirror, He commands that we see ourselves as the spiritual dwellingplace of His Son: "Therefore reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God though Jesus Christ our Lord" (Romans 6:11). We must know. We must remember. Only thereby will we do. Paul and James tell us this, and through their words, the Holy Spirit calls us to "behold as in mirror" and to thereby "be changed into the same image," the spiritual and moral image of Christ.
"We shall live with Him by the power of God."
(II Corinthians 13:4)
"As ye have therefore received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk ye in Him, rooted and built up in Him, and stablished in the faith, as ye have been taught, abounding therein with thanksgiving."
(Colossians 2:6-7)
Weekly Memory Verse
Know therefore this day, and consider it in thine heart, that the Lord, He is God in heaven above, and upon the earth beneath: there is none else."
(Deuteronomy 4:39)
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