When you flash your pearly whites with a big piece of green spinach between two of them, it’s quite embarrassing. There’s that sinking feeling that comes when you’ve talked to a group of people and realize after the conversation that your smile had been compromised by a vegetable! Indeed, it’s a good idea to look in a mirror after certain kinds of meals (or at least consult a trusted friend).
Mirrors are important in life. We use them often, but we rarely stop to ponder their significance. I use a mirror to give me a realistic picture of what I look like … not what I wish to look like … but what I actually look like. And if – after peering in that glass – I find spinach in my teeth or a clump of hair sticking out, I fix myself. After all, isn’t that the point of looking in the mirror? What kind of fool would I be to walk away from a mirror after seeing spinach in my teeth and not do a thing about it?
Walking around all day with a glaring glitch in my appearance that could have been fixed after a consultation with the mirror is a ridiculous thing to do. An even more foolish thing to do is to look in the mirror of God’s Word and walk away unchanged. God has something specific to say about that in James 1:22-25 (ESV):
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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 who looks intently at his natural face in a mirror. For he looks at himself and goes away and at once forgets what he was like. But the one who looks into the perfect law, the law of liberty, and perseveres, being no hearer who forgets but a doer who acts, he will be blessed in his doing.
It’s a simple precept. The Bible acts as a mirror for us; it shows us what we really look like – not what we wish we looked like. The only true standard for a right-functioning human is God’s standard. He made us, and He knows precisely how we need to be. His Word is the glass into which we gaze and get a true picture of our glitches. Only, let’s be honest, those glitches are sins. And sin leads to death (James 1:15).
When we open the Bible and find we are selfish, we need to change and dislodge ourselves from the center of our world. When the Lord shows us we are unforgiving, we need to forgive with the love of Jesus. When the Holy Spirit shows us as we read the Bible that we do not have the passion for God to which we are called, we need to pursue Him more…with all our heart. When Jesus shows us that a relationship is out of His will, we need to make changes. And the list goes on.
To walk around with spinach in your teeth is one thing, but to walk through your days with glaring sin in your life is dangerous. God has given us His Word to show us what we need to see about ourselves. And His command is clear, “Be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves” (James 1:22, ESV). In other words, we are lying to ourselves when we claim to follow Christ but refuse to act out the change that needs to take place based on the standard of God’s Word. As much as you want your friend to tell you there is spinach in your teeth before you talk in front of a crowd, you desperately need the Bible to point out your sin before you stand in front of God face to face.
The Lord promises freedom to those who “take the spinach out.” We will always be bound up inside as long as we refuse to deal with the sin to which God points in the mirror of His Word. We will be restless and tied up in emotional, spiritual, and even physical knots. The Bible is the “law of liberty” (James 1:25) that sets men and women free by enabling us to deal with the reality of our specific sins.
Be blessed today by looking into the Bible and reacting to the accurate reflection you see. The Bible promises that if you persevere each day in this, you will find God’s mysterious and abundant blessing.
You most likely don’t give up on checking your physical body in the mirror each day – even when it’s difficult to face! You react to what you see in order to look good. But what is the status of your spiritual self? That’s a life and death situation. Don’t give up looking in that mirror! Open up the Bible…and react. Pull out that spinach and be blessed!