If You Want to Change, Spend Time Looking in the Mirror of God’s Word
The Word of God, specifically the Bible, serves a powerful and essential function as a spiritual mirror. This concept, drawn from the Epistle of James (chapter 1, verse 23), highlights that the Bible does not merely reflect one’s outward appearance, but instead shows a person their true spiritual condition.
Looking into this mirror is extremely important for our spiritual growth and welfare. However, the sources warn against simply looking, seeing what one is like, and then going away and forgetting it without taking action.
I. The Bible as a Mirror: Revealing Inner Truth
The Word of God acts as a supernatural mirror, revealing the internal reality of a person.
A. Seeing Your True Condition
When preaching, the Bible can be held up as a mirror, inviting people to look for themselves to see what the Word tells them about their inner state. For example, when discussing deliverance from evil spirits, the approach is not to accuse individuals, but to hold up the mirror and allow the person to decide what action they will take based on what the mirror reveals.
B. The Process of Continuous Transformation
Paul beautifully describes the transformative power of this mirror in 2 Corinthians 3:18: “But we all with unveiled face beholding as in a mirror, the glory of the Lord are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory just as by the Spirit of the Lord”.
This transformation is described using the continuing present tense. As a person continually looks into the mirror, they continually see God’s glory revealed. Crucially, as they look, the Holy Spirit changes them into the likeness of what they see, moving from glory to glory.
C. The Holy Spirit’s Requirement
The transformation process only works while you are looking in the mirror. If you take your eyes away from the mirror, the Holy Spirit ceases to work in you.
Therefore, to be changed, one must spend time looking in the mirror of the word of God. The more you look, the more glorious it gets. You might get one glimpse of what God intends to make you, but the next time you look, God reveals that “was only just one stage, but there’s a whole lot more to come”.
II. Solving the Poor Self-Image Problem
A significant struggle for many people in the world today, including multitudes of Christians, is a poor self-image. Many struggle with feeling inferior or lacking value.
The real biblical solution to this problem is to keep looking in the mirror.
A. Discovering Your Value
Initially, the mirror will show you what you are like, which might be a “shock”. However, if you keep looking, the mirror begins to show you what God can make you and how valuable you are in God’s sight.
To determine value, one must consider what people will pay for it. The true value of a person is determined by what God paid for them. God bought believers with the most valuable thing in the universe: the blood of Jesus.
Therefore, one’s value is infinitely valuable in the sight of God. Believers should not measure themselves by other people or listen to negative insinuations. Instead, they can tell the devil: “Don’t bother with all your accusations and insinuations because I know my own value”.
This profound sense of value is only known if one spends time in the Bible, listening to what God is telling them about themselves and His love.