The Mirror of the Word
Read James 1:23–25 Fall 2025 Communion Season
Every mirror tells the truth, but none so truthfully as Scripture. It has no filter. It shows what we are without cover.
A man may live a long time without knowing his own face. From that mirror, he looks at others sitting behind him, beside him, all around him, but never at himself. He forms many conclusions without understanding, renders many secret judgments without all the facts, but never looks quite long enough, deep enough at himself, to see what heaven sees. Then comes the hour when the Word lays hold of him! It’s no longer a book, but a living eye, and he cannot turn away.
“But whoso looketh into the perfect law of liberty, and continueth therein” James says. That looking has nothing natural about it. It is supernatural. The Spirit holds the mirror steady, and now three images stare back: the old man, proud and scarred, the new man, faintly glowing beneath. Or is it the other way around?
The heart winces because now the Word is not read, it reads. Every verse another revelation of self. Every commandment another beam of light upon the dusty feet.
Bu there is a third image. The washing Healer. In that reflection, beside the sinner’s, stands Christ. His face marred more than any man’s. The image of the invisible God made sin for us, and I now stand clean.
When I linger here in the Word, at my exposed self, I see a changed and changing self, invited to remain until His likeness traces itself all over mine.
So I ask myself in this week of preparation:
When I read, do I look and go my way?
Or do I wait long enough for His gaze to meet mine?
Because this mirror, unlike all others, shows what I am.
But it also shows what I am becoming in Christ.
Searching question, "do I wait long enough for His gaze to meet mine?"
I appreciate your lead up to and your last sentence - Because this mirror, unlike all others, shows what I am [and]… what I am becoming in Christ. It is so wonderful that the mirror of the word shines on us to expose our true condition before God but He doesn’t leave us in this state but makes full provision for us in both the blood and the water that flowed from His riven side (Jn 19:34). The blood for redemption to cleanse us from the guilt of sin and the water for regeneration and sanctification to wash us from the power of sin and set us free by His flowing divine life. By the flowing of His divine life in the Spirit we can be transformed and conformed to His image to be just like Him for we will see Him even as He is (1 Jn 3:1-2). And it is this seeing of Him transforms us as it did Job who said, “I had heard of You by the hearing of the ear but now my eye has seem You; therefore I abhor myself and repent in dust and ashes” (42:5-6). So at once we see God and spontaneously we see ourselves and we are changed. Hallelujah for such a mirror!
Oh to be like Thee, blessed Redeemer,
This is my constant longing and prayer.
Daily I’ll forfeit all of earth’s pleasures,
Jesus, Thy perfect likeness to wear.
Oh to be like Thee,
Oh to be like Thee,
Blessed Redeemer,
Pure as Thou art;
Come in Thy sweetness,
Come in Thy fullness;
Stamp Thine own image deep on my heart.