The Face in the Mirror

[Just as a side-note, I wanted to clarify a statement in my previous post.  When I said, "I must write," I did not mean I am/was being forced to do so.  I meant that I just have to do it - like a horse has to neigh and a zebra has to have stripes.  It's part of who I am. :) ]
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“But prove yourselves doers of the word, and not merely hearers who delude themselves.  For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man who looks at his natural face in a mirror; for once he has looked at himself and gone away, he has immediately forgotten what kind of person he was.  But one who looks intently at the perfect law, the law of liberty, and abides by it, not having become a forgetful hearer but an effectual doer, this man shall be blessed in what he does.” ~ James 1:22-25

The great wonder of Christianity is that, in giving up ourselves to Christ, we become something infinitely better than what we were before.  God asks us for ourselves and gives us Himself.  He asks for the sinful person and offers His holiness in return.

Why He would want our sinful selves is beyond me.  Ephesians 2 says that you and I were, “dead in [our] trespasses and sins, in which [we] formerly walked according to the course of this world…”  (Ephesian 2:1-2a)  One, we were dead.  Dead things are nasty, rotting, and stinking.  Two, we weren’t just dead, we were dead in sin, the antithesis of the holiness of God.  Three, we walked according to the ways of the world – and friendship with the world, James 4 says, is enmity toward God.  Dead, living in complete opposition to God’s nature, and at war with Him.  And He offered His righteousness in return for our deadness and sin and surrender.  Why?  I don’t know.  But He did.

When we looked in a spiritual mirror before surrendering ourselves to Him, we saw corruption and evil.  That was the face in the mirror.  But with our surrender, we were given a new face – the face of Christ.  2 Corinthians puts it like this: “Therefore if any man is in Christ, he is a new creature; the old things passed away; behold new things have come.”

But the difficulty is this: We looked into the mirror for so long, seeing corruption, that this new man is unfamiliar and remembering his characteristics is difficult.  It isn’t as if we can memorize a physical description.  He isn’t physical.  In that sense, we are the same.  How, then, does one see this new creature, this new face?

James 1 says we are to look into God’s perfect law of liberty.  Why?  The Law of liberty is the reflection of God’s nature.  In looking at this law we see God’s attributes.  And “all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ.” (Galatians 3:27)  Christ’s righteousness is given to us and His righteousness can be seen in the perfect Word and ways of God.

We are told to look into a mirror and memorize our new selves, so that we will remember who we are since we were given a new face, based in the nature and character of God.  What better place to find what our new nature is to be than in the very thoughts and actions of God, whose righteousness we have been given?

You have a new face.  In place of your dead sinfulness, Jesus gave you His perfect face.  But you must live by that new face and the only way to do that is by learning what that new face is like.  In the perfect word of God we see a reflection of His face.  When we look into it – wonder of wonders – by grace, the face of Christ looks back at us.  Oh that we may live in a manner worthy of that face!

~M.