Daily Devotions

Looking into God’s Mirror

Imagine standing in front of a mirror one morning. You’ve just rolled out of bed—your hair is everywhere, there’s a streak of toothpaste on your chin, and your shirt is buttoned wrong. The mirror faithfully shows it all. Now imagine looking at that reflection and saying, “Oh well,” then walking out the door unchanged.

It sounds silly, right? Who looks in a mirror, sees something clearly wrong, and does nothing about it? In the letter of James, we find a different kind of mirror.

“Anyone who listens to the word but does not do what it says is like someone who looks at his face in a mirror and, after looking at himself, goes away and immediately forgets what he looks like.”
—James 1:23–24 (NIV)

In the physical world, a mirror shows us our outward appearance. We notice a smudge, a hair out of place, or simply our likeness. But Scripture uses the mirror as a picture of how God’s Word reveals our inner life. Just as a clean mirror gives a clear image, the Bible—“the perfect law that gives freedom” (James 1:25)—shows us who we really are before God.

It is then that we see not only what we look like but the blemishes of our lives. It is what we do and react to the image we see and what we do about the blemishes; are we prompted to change? A mirror doesn’t scold; it simply shows the need for correction.

You see this true mirror isn’t glass, but Christ himself. “We all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into his image” (2 Corinthians 3:18). God’s Spirit works as we turn from merely seeing to obeying.

Too often we “look in the mirror” of Scripture only to go on unchanged. James warns us that knowing and doing must go hand in hand.

Lord,
You’ve given us Your Word as a mirror to reveal our true selves.
Help me not merely to look, but to listen and obey.
Cleanse me from what’s hindering your likeness in me,
and transform me by your Spirit into the image of Christ.
Amen.