Mirror, mirror lie to me

“Mirror, mirror on the wall, who’s the fairest of all?” ~ The evil Queen

“Mirror, mirror lie to me, show me what I want to see. Mirror, mirror lie to me.” ~ M2M

Back in 1988 a song was racing up the charts called “Man in the Mirror” sung by the self proclaimed King of Pop, Michael Jackson. The song was written by Siedah Garrett and Glen Ballard and it was one of Jackson’s most critically acclaimed songs. It was nominated for Record of the Year and given serious Grammy consideration. This was well before Jackson’s much chronicled public and private meltdown, and today the lyrics are hauntingly ironic in light of the revelations about Jackson. The song states; “I’m starting with the man in the mirror. I’m asking him to change his ways. And no message could have been any clearer, if you want to make the world a better place, take a look at yourself, and then make a change.” We may chuckle to ourselves about Jackson having what we perceive as the audacity to sing such a song, but maybe we should check our own reflection before we start looking down on him or anyone else for that matter.

Like any other middle aged man I try to stay in shape and maintain my weight. I attempt, (attempt being the operative word), to regularly exercise. My attempts are helped by having a membership at our local YMCA. In the men’s locker room there is a wall of mirrors adjacent to the lockers. I find it very interesting and more than a little comical to watch the vast majority of the men preening and flexing in front of those mirrors. No one, including myself is immune from walking by that bank of mirrors to see if we look any thinner or admire our so-called physiques. I can honestly say that I don’t have to worry about primping my hair since I am completely bald, but I chuckle to myself watching guys comb and re-comb and mess with their hair; even those who work that comb-over till it’s perfect. I know it is also the habit of guys to compare their physique and muscles to the other guys standing nearby. You can almost hear the wheels turning in their heads thinking; “I might be a little overweight, but that other guy is much flabbier than I. I guess I don’t look that bad.” But these same guys walk away after a workout and get a Grand Slam breakfast at Denny’s or get some sweet tea, fries and hush puppies for lunch forgetting what they looked like in front of that mirror that very morning.

James talks about this same phenomenon in spiritual terms in James 1:22-25 when he wrote; “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.” In our daily lives we are that person who has our true reflection revealed to us through the preaching of God’s Word or in personal Bible study. We enjoy the “work out” and we are convicted by the Holy Spirit about the need to take a look at ourselves and make the change. But then we walk away and forget or put out of our mind what God was trying to teach us, and wonder why there is no lasting change or why we still struggle with the same besetting sins.

Or maybe we get consumed with checking out the “reflection” of others and worry more about how they look rather than focusing on ourselves. We don’t appear to be as spiritually flabby or out of shape as so-and-so and hope they are listening to the Sunday message, rather than letting the Holy Spirit speak to us. We consciously or unconsciously say; “I may struggle with X, but at least I am not as bad as him or her.” The Expositor’s Bible Commentary states this about James 1:22; “Those who congratulate themselves on being hearers of the truth are deceiving themselves. If they assume that is all that is needed, they are sadly mistaken. If they think that merely listening to the message earns them a position of special favor with God, they are duped by their own faulty reasoning. In reality, the responsibility of those who hear is far greater than of those who have never heard. If they do not combine doing with hearing, they put themselves in a most vulnerable position.”

James doesn’t want us to take an “out of sight, out of mind” approach to the Gospel. To borrow from Nike; when it comes to the Gospel we need to Just Do It! Living out the Gospel is not theory, and it must be lived out in practice, otherwise we make it null in void in our lives and in the lives of those with whom we live and work. Start with the man in the mirror, ask him to change his ways. No message could be any clearer, if you want to make the world a better place, take a look at yourself and make the change.

"Grace does not chose a man and leave him where he is." ~ C.H. Spurgeon

“Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.” ~ II Corinthians 5:17