“….for once he has looked at himself and gone away, he has immediately forgotten what kind of person he was,” James 1:24.

We all look in our mirrors every day, beholding the image of ourselves. We see every line and wrinkle; every hair, and blemish.

And then we walk away, oftentimes going about the business of life, forgetting who we really are.

James tells us that we can forget who we are when we quote the scriptures and then don’t put them into practice. This is very much like the man who built his house upon the sand because of hearing the word and then didn’t put it into practice.

But I want to talk about a deeper application of the metaphor of the mirror. We as mere mortals see our image in a mirror and again we behold the externals of what we see, thinking that this is all there is to see.

And yet, Christ has and is, creating a new image of ourselves. He is framing that picture of us within the confines of His eternal purposes, so that we will be conformed into His image.

“For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren,” Romans 8:29.

What I am saying here is simply that He sees the finished work in us. We behold a man or a woman in all of their imperfections.

We see the hurts and pain; the grievances and the anger. We behold a man or woman with gray hair, or a younger person attempting to make themselves look more attractive.

And yet, the most attractive thing to God is a beautiful spirit that is being conformed into His image.

The way we consider ourselves is projected unto the world around us. “As a man thinketh, so is he.”

Of course it’s a process, this stripping away of the old man, in order to be conformed into the image of Christ.

While God sees us through His Son, the process is still being worked on. We haven’t fully arrived yet. The fragments of the mirror are being reformulated each and every day into a new image.

Many of us may have been to a carnival or a fair, when we were younger. There was a place that had fun mirrors that distorted one’s image.

I remember looking at myself and seeing an elongated figure, or sometimes the image became shortened. What I looked at, was twisted and didn’t represent the actual image of what I looked like.

But you see, perhaps this is how we at times consider ourselves. We see a figure has been twisted and doesn’t actually represent who we are in Christ.

We see all of the short-comings and what we have perhaps failed to do, or not do.

“For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face; now I know in part, but then I will know fully just as I also have been fully known,” 1 Corinthians 13:12.

 

Selah,
~ Stephen Hanson

---

Stephen Hanson of In His Truth Ministries came to the LORD is a special way in 1975 and has prophesied regularly since. In these end-time birthing pangs we are reminded that judgment must first begin with the household of God. Will we be prepared and ready?

Back to Top