Why mirror image creation? The easiest way for me to explain is to start with the Word:
Don’t deceive yourselves by only hearing what the Word says, but do it! For whoever hears the Word but doesn’t do what it says is like someone who looks at his face in a mirror, who looks at himself, goes away and immediately forgets what he looks like. But if a person looks closely into the perfect Torah, which gives freedom, and continues, becoming not a forgetful hearer but a doer of the work it requires, then he will be blessed in what he does. (CJB)
I get excited just reading it! Here’s another version:
But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves. For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man who looks intently at his natural face in a mirror. For he looks at himself and goes away and at once forgets what he was like. But the one who looks into the perfect law, the law of liberty, and perseveres, being no hearer who forgets but a doer who acts, he will be blessed in his doing. (ESV)
Looking into the Word is like looking into a mirror at our natural face? That is beyond incredible to me. We look into the mirror, the mirror of God’s Word, and He shows us who we are. God gives us so much identity in his Word, so much hope for our lives (Philippians 1:6). He speaks His love over us (1 John 4:9-10). He shows us the grand story he planned from the beginning of time for Jesus to come to earth to save humanity. And the same Word shows us that God wants to write us into his grand Story. He builds and deepens and creates in us an even better identity and self image – through the mirror of His Word.
But just reading this great story, hearing this great story, just looking into the mirror, is not enough. We have to do what it says. We have to remember what we look like. We have to remember what the Word says about our identity and purpose.
No, we are not saved by works, but saved by grace (Ephesians 2:8-9), but God has prepared good works for us to complete ahead of time (Ephesians 2:10). Doing the Word is a vital part of our faith walk. In fact, this verse says we are deceiving ourselves, losing our identity, if we do not act on and do what we hear in the Word. We don’t even remember what we look like, what our faith looks like, if we are not practicing what we hear, not practicing what we see in the mirror. Jesus calls it being “salt and light” in Matthew chapter 5, His Sermon on the Mount.
So, what works? What do we do? Where do I start? We have to start by being hearers of the Word, by looking into the mirror. I have to be in the Word. Five minutes a day, 15 minutes, 30 minutes, even just one verse a day. I have to force myself to make time – force myself to focus. It doesn’t have to be entire chapters, or entire books of the Bible. Sometimes it will be just one verse. Make an appointment with your Bible, that law of liberty, the law of freedom. What a beautiful dichotomy by the way. Our Word, our mirror, is a law of freedom. Freedom is the law. The more we read it, the more free we become.
It’s hard at first. It doesn’t make sense. But wrestle it, like Jacob wrestled God (Genesis 32:24-25). Ask questions. Demand answers (Genesis 32:26-30). God loves when His children want to dig in and know more about him. He even documents when we as believers talk about Him! (Malachi 3:16)
After the hearing, comes the doing part. When I walk away from the mirror, I have to remember what I look like. I pick something out of the Word. I write it down and put it in my car, at my desk, in my wallet, on my phone. I ask myself how I can live that out in my daily life. I’ll focus on one bible verse for two weeks at a time sometimes. It’s not a points game. You don’t have to fulfill and do 15 bible verses a week or even one a day. The point is that we hear and do, not hear and do-everything-at-once.
What do I choose to do first? I pray. I ask God to bring any contentious way in me to light, and to lead me in the way everlasting (Psalm 139:24). I slow down and focus on what the Word is saying instead of just trying to get an allotted 4 chapters in per day. Then the miraculous happens. The Holy Spirit starts to nudge me when I read his Word and I realize there something in those pages that I’m not working into my life (John 16:13). Then I try to do it. I meditate on it. I ask God to show me how to practice it (John 14:26). It doesn’t even have to be complicated! There’s lots of simple lists in the Bible that will keep me going for a very long time before I can even begin to start on the so-called “the deeper things of God.”
Take for instance:
Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, faithfulness, and self-control. (Galatians 5:22-23)
or
Love is: patient, kind, does not envy, does not boast, is not arrogant, is not rude, does not insist on its own way, is not irritable, is not resentful, it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, it rejoices in the truth, it bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, and endures all things. (1 Corinthians 13:4-7)
or
Think on and practice these things, whatever is: true, honorable, just, pure, lovely, commendable, anything of excellence, anything worthy of praise. (Philippians 4:8)
I certainly am not always patient or kind, and I can think of more than one occasion when I was irritable or envious, and I don’t always think on and practice commendable and excellent things. These will keep me busy the rest of my life, as I work to do the word and not just hear – to look in the mirror, and remember what I look like when I walk away. So, that is why “mirror. image. creation.” My hope is to share that walk with you here by putting them to paper and pixels as the Holy Spirit illuminates more things in my life that I need to see in the mirror, and remember as my identity when I walk away. Until next time, I pray you will start hearing what the law of liberty and freedom has to say to your heart, and that you will persevere in doing it as you hear it.
In Him – Just a girl pursuing her reflection in the mirror