The Mirror Picture Switch
Here is a concept for you to play with, and we will start with this quote from Paul as found in 1 Corinthians 13:12 “For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known.” Then move onto this one from Genesis 32:30 “And Jacob called the name of the place Peniel: for I have seen God face to face, and my life is preserved.” Or this from John 1:18 “No man hath seen God at any time; the only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared [him].”
If we pick up Paul’s concept of “a glass” and re-name it “a looking glass” we have what we understand today, as a “Mirror.” Now if the third quote is totally exact, then Jacob, in our spiritual concept, just saw as it were, the mirror image of God, and not his actual real being, Jacob looked as it were into a mirror and saw God, well God’s perfect image as a reflection.
Now is this “Theologically Correct?” well we can all argue that for the next millennia and still not get a united consensus of agreement, but this concept sure makes for a very amusing and insightful thoughtful process. Now if we utilize what was once termed, “the gypsy switch” where an object is switched by the magician’s sleight of hand for a totally different object, without the receiver ever realizing the switched item is now in his possession, we get a wonderful end result.
Anybody can look into the mirror and get a very accurate representation or concept of God, and Satan is not happy about that, because he wants God to look like a nasty vengeful ruthless destroyer, and for he himself, Mr Satan, to look like that real nice guy who really has your best interest at heart (well just ask Eve if she got a real good deal?) So Satan does “the gypsy switch” and slips a precision picture/photograph onto the mirror, so when anybody approaches to looks at it to see what God actually looks like, they get this very inaccurate concept because the real God is hidden from view by the false representation plastered and pasted over the top of the genuine.
To run this concept right current, now, today, we Christians are often happy to wave the flag of our devotion to Jesus Christ, but sometimes we fly our Denomination just a wee bit higher, anyway, Jesus and God look the same, John 14:9 “Jesus saith unto him, Have I been so long time with you, and yet hast thou not known me, Philip? He that hath seen me hath seen the Father; and how sayest thou [then], Show us the Father?”
So Jesus and our Heavenly Father look the same, but we claim to be “Christians” but do we really present an accurate semblance of Jesus Christ, who is an accurate semblance of out Heavenly Father. Question; Do we accurately reflect God? Is the Mirror of our life very dull or very distorted in what it represents, just like the “Hall of Mirrors,” or even worse, has Mr Satan stuck a poster over many of us showing something even more deceivingly incorrect?
We have this concept from James, Jesus’s Brother, to add to our ponderings, as found in James 1:25 “But whoso looketh into the perfect law of liberty, and continueth [therein], he being not a forgetful hearer, but a doer of the work, this man shall be blessed in his deed.” Here James is pointing us to Scripture, as the most common reference as to “the perfect law of liberty,” which is the very first five books in the Bible, or “The Books of Moses.” We get this also from John 14:15 “If ye love me, keep my commandments.” Here Jesus is using terms that in our concept, we are presenting as a “Mirror.”
James has this concept expanded and this is in James 1:21-27 “Wherefore lay apart all filthiness and superfluity of naughtiness, and receive with meekness the engrafted word, which is able to save your souls. But be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves. For if any be a hearer of the word, and not a doer, he is like unto a man beholding his natural face in a glass: For he beholdeth himself, and goeth his way, and straightway forgetteth what manner of man he was. But whoso looketh into the perfect law of liberty, and continueth [therein], he being not a forgetful hearer, but a doer of the work, this man shall be blessed in his deed. If any man among you seem to be religious, and bridleth not his tongue, but deceiveth his own heart, this man’s religion [is] vain. Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, to visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, [and] to keep himself unspotted from the world.”
So from our ponderings, we find that the Bible is a perfect reflection of God and his standards, man falls short in his own righteousness (filthy rags), but “with Christ in us the hope of Glory” we believers are to be unspotted and pure, thus perfectly reflecting Father God.
Dear Readers; How is with each of us, is the Holy Spirit abundantly working in and through us, reflecting God, and then making it very clear to everyone, what God is like and who actually have a “False Picture” glued onto themselves (by their fruits) and are misrepresenting God. Let us each resolve to always perfectly reflect Jesus Christ, in all things, so go to Jesus and polish your mirror.
