What Do You See in Your Spiritual Reflection?
Good Morning Friends,
We are to chew on the word letting the living Word stimulate our imagination and challenge us to echo God’s love in our life. For God’s word, written or spoken, is like a mirror with reason as our eye and our conscience a heavenly image. We are to emulate it into our lives. We are to listen to scripture and allow its healing to be present in our actions. Friends, the Bible is a book about integrity that is to be internalized and made flesh in us. In obedience we are to
respond. What Do You See in Your Spiritual Reflection?
Scripture: Blessed . . . are those who hear the word of God and obey it.
Luke 11:28 (NIV)
You must understand this, my beloved: let everyone be quick to listen, slow to speak, slow to anger; for your anger does not produce God’s righteousness. Therefore rid yourselves of all sordidness and rank growth of wickedness, and welcome with meekness the implanted word that has the power to save your souls. But be doers of the word, and not merely hearers who deceive themselves. For if any are hearers of the word and not doers, they are like those who look at themselves in a mirror; for they look at themselves and, on going away, immediately forget what they were like. But those who look into the perfect law, the law of liberty, and persevere, being not hearers who forget but doers who act–they will be blessed in their doing.
James 1:19-25 (NRSV)
12For now we see in a mirror, dimly,* but then we will see face to face. Now I know only in part; then I will know fully, even as I have been fully known.
1 Corinthians 13:12 (NRSV)
Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children, and live in love, as Christ loved us* and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.
Ephesians 5:1-3 (NRSV)
Message: The word reflection means both serious thought or consideration and also the returning of sound or light. It can mean an effect produced by an influence or even an idea generated after much thought. But in mathematics it is a transformation of a figure in which each point is replaced by a point symmetric with respect to a line. That scripture says the Word became flesh indicates such a transformation. Jesus would only do what he saw the Father doing. For us though there is a conflict. The challenge is that we need practice in reading scripture with the intent of being transformed by it. Here we are to listen to the voice of the Lord and not be stubborn. On a spiritual dimension it is as if a battle between two opposing armies. Here in the reading of the Bible daily we can see how scripture illustrates both our spiritual woes and joys manifested in the physical and formed over time. Here the evil in us can mute the praise of God by shutting up our mouths but also can prompt an unkind word. Here our joy in the Lord can bring us love. So the doing of the Word means we need to name our demons and caste them out as Jesus did for the mute man afflicted by a demon. Just as our corrupted flesh remains an occasion for our downfall, so the holy and blessed flesh of Christ remains our salvation to deliver us and sanctify us in our walk. Friends, repent, hear the good news and be doers in the Word made flesh. Let Christ dwell in each of us as a reflection of His light as a Word vibrating with a holy resonance.
Pray that we learn how to communicate love. Pray we learn how to listen to God through His Word and through the Holy Spirit. Pray we learn to listen to others reflecting the Christ in them. Pray we are committed to doing something of significance. Pray we are committed to serving and sharing the Word in us. Pray we think before we speak. Pray we live in the truth of the Word. Pray that in relationship with the Living Word, in the reading of a written word, in the speaking of a word formed in silence and in the writing of a word for others, we experience the Word of God and the Spirit of God within us. Pray we see beyond the illusions of our thoughts. Pray we see ourselves as we really are…image bearers… always and forever being loved by God.
Blessings,
John Lawson
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