Mirrors...

A story popped up this week on The Today Show about mirrors. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a news report about mirrors. What int he world could they do a story about mirrors about? It seems these are special mirrors that are being bought by women’s clothing stores. They are made in such a way that they take 5-10 pounds off your reflection!  This leads people to buy the clothes they try on because they look skinnier in them. They interviewed the manufacturer who claimed normal mirrors “actually add 5-10 pounds on,” so they asked physics experts who said that was not true. The interviewer referred to them as “deceptive mirrors.”

James wrote: “…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” (1:22-25).

When we read the Word or hear the Word taught and we do not respond to it. When we are no more than a hearer and not a doer it is as if we are looking into a deceptive mirror. The reflection becomes untrue of us - we feel good about being a hearer - and we “deceive ourselves” into thinking that is enough.  The problem is that we like the way it makes us feel - but like the deceptive mirror even the Word becomes ineffective.