Mirror, mirror on my heart

James 1:22-25  
In the old story…Snow White and the 7 Dwarfs The wicked witch sure liked it when the mirror told her that she was the fairest. But when it told her that she wasn’t ... then she got very angry and very jealous. That’s the thing about GOOD mirrors, they always tell us the truth, even if we don’t like what we see! But if a mirror is going to work properly, it must be a proper mirror. Consider the following observations:

I. A mirror is a necessity-A. We are often driven by subjective motives such as vanity and self interest to have a certain image of ourselves. But that image often differs from reality. Even with regard to our physical appearance, which can be readily checked in a mirror, our self image is often inaccurate. That is why we need an objective tool by which to measure our true state of being, just as we need a mirror that "doesn't lie" to tell us what we really look like.

In matters of the soul that mirror is the law of God. The only pure and unbiased standard of rightness and spiritual beauty is God and His word. But even with this mirror the truth often eludes us. Why?

 Many Christians are like that impressive invention which had hundreds of wheels, coils, gears, pulleys, belts, bells and lights which all went around and around and flashed at the touch of a button. When the inventor was asked about the function of the weird machine, he replied, "What does it do? Oh, it doesn't do anything, but doesn't it run beautifully?"

II. Why we fail to see ourselves in the mirror-A. We don't look into the mirror. When we have a suspicion that we are wrong, and we are determined not to change, then the easiest way to maintain a favorable self image is to run away from anything which might remind us of the truth.

John 3:19 And this is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil. 

2 Samuel 12:5 And David’s anger was greatly kindled against the man; and he said to Nathan, As the LORD liveth, the man that hath done this thing shall surely die… 

David had no problem picking out the flaws of the unnamed man, but he was the man all along. Like the bird that pecks at himself in the mirror we peck at the flaws of the "bad people" not realizing that they are us.

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.

We must get real close to the scriptures and look long and hard at the image of ourselves that they present to us. If our glance into the word is occasional and half hearted, we will miss much that is wrong in our lives.

 It was Flight 401 bound for Miami from New York City with a load of holiday passengers. As the huge aircraft approached the Miami Airport for its landing, a light that indicates proper deployment of the landing gear failed to come on. The plane flew in a large, looping circle over the swamps of the Everglades while the cockpit crew checked out the light failure. Their question was this, had the landing gear actually not deployed or was it just the light bulb that was defective? To begin with, the flight engineer fiddled with the bulb. He tried to remove it, but it wouldn't budge. Another member of the crew tried to help out...and then another. By and by, if you can believe it, all eyes were on the little light bulb that refused to be dislodged from its socket. No one noticed that the plane was losing altitude. Finally, it dropped right into a swamp. Many were killed in that plane crash. While an experienced crew of high-priced and seasoned pilots messed around with a seventy-five-cent light bulb, an entire airplane and many of its passengers were lost. The crew momentarily forgot the most basic of all rules of the air -- "Don't forget to fly the airplane!"

Of course the main point is that we must do something about our flaws and shortcomings. Self reflection is pointless if it never leads to corrective measures.