Did you know that about 17 percent of Americans believe the Bible is full of man-written fables and fairy tales? Only 30 percent believe the Word of God is the literal Word of God. So says a recent Gallup poll.
Although fairy tale writers draw inspiration from the Bible, I’m here to tell you that the Bible can in no way be compared to Cinderella, Alice in Wonderland or Snow White and the Seven Dwarves, where a wicked queen peered into a mirror, mirror on the wall to get assurance that she was the fairest of them all.
However, there is a supernatural mirror, if you will, that we can look into to get assurance that we are the most cherished of them all. This mirror transforms us from glory to glory. It’s called the Bible, the Word of God, the Holy Scripture. And its authors, inspired by the Holy Ghost, compared it to a mirror on three occasions. By exploring the Bible as a mirror, we gain a clearer understanding of how to become more like the holiest of all.
Do you speak in tongues? So did Paul the apostle. But he would be the first to tell you that without love it meant little more than sounding brass and clanging cymbals. Can you prophesy an accurate word in due season? Paul could prophesy with the best of them, and he understood the mystery of Christ. Do you move in the gift of faith? Paul did. Yet without love, Paul confessed, he would have been nothing. Do you give to the poor? Would you be wiling to die for the cause of Christ? That’s awesome. But if you aren’t motivated by love, it won’t do you a bit of good in eternity.
The truth is, prophecies will fail, tongues will cease and knowledge will vanish away. We know in part and we prophesy in part. We won’t be perfect until we trade this mortality for immortality, this corruption for incorruption. But we must steadily mature along the narrow path, even if we can’t see clearly where we are going. We walk by faith and not by sight. And we have to focus on what matters. What matters is most faith, hope and love. Paul put it this way:
“When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child; but when I became a man, I put away childish things. For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part, but then I shall know just as I also am known. And now abide faith, hope, love, these three; but the greatest of these is love” (1 Cor. 13:11-13).
When we look into the Word of God, the mirror, it builds faith, restores hope and inspires love in our hearts for God, ourselves and others. When we turn to the Lord—and when we turn through the pages of His Word seeking His truth—the veil is taken away. In other words, our minds are renewed. And we are transformed by the renewing of our minds as the Spirit of God supernaturally reveals the Word of God with such clear understanding that we are never the same.
“Now the Lord is the Spirit; and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty. 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” (2 Cor. 3:17-18).
Now here’s the rub. As we look into the mirror that is the Word of God, we must believe what it says about who we are and we must do what it says we should do by the grace of God. Otherwise, we walk away with a spirit of deception hot on our trail. James said it better than I can:
“But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves. For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man observing his natural face in a mirror; for he observes himself, goes away, and immediately forgets what kind of man he was” (James 1:22-24).
The mirror tells us who we are. We are holy as He is holy. We are the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus. Greater is He that is in us than He that is in the world. We are the head and not the tail, above and not beneath. We are more than conquerors in Christ. I could go on and on about who you are in Christ. The mirror speaks clearly. And there’s an interesting correlation here between our behavior and the revelation of who we are.
I believe that when we fail to walk in the revealed light of God’s Word to us, it robs us of the confidence of who we are in Him. Sin—failing to do the Word—causes a breach in our fellowship with God. It brings guilt, shame and condemnation. When we sin, we have to remember who we are in Christ—the forgiven—and quickly repent.
Then we need to go back and look in the mirror again to find out who we are. The more time we spend in front of the mirror looking at who we are, the less often we’ll stumble. A revelation of who we are is a mighty weapon against the enemy. When we put that revelation into words it becomes a spiritual sword. Look out devil!
Our ultimate goal is to be transformed into the image of Christ. The writer of Hebrews offers us hope:
“Going through a long line of prophets, God has been addressing our ancestors in different ways for centuries. Recently he spoke to us directly through his Son. By his Son, God created the world in the beginning, and it will all belong to the Son at the end. This Son perfectly mirrors God, and is stamped with God’s nature. He holds everything together by what he says—powerful words!” (Hebrews 1:1-3 MSG)
The Son perfectly mirrors God. One day, we will perfectly mirror the Son. Until then, let us look into the mirror of God’s Word to seek the face of the Holiest of all—and let us speak forth the revelation of who we are in Christ—and who we will be in eternity. Powerful words! Amen.
Jennifer LeClaire is news editor at Charisma. She is also the author of several books, including The Heart of the Prophetic. You can e-mail Jennifer at
[email protected] or visit her website here.
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