{"id":69,"date":"2016-03-30T08:46:25","date_gmt":"2016-03-30T08:46:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/davesali.wordpress.com\/?p=69"},"modified":"2016-03-30T08:46:25","modified_gmt":"2016-03-30T08:46:25","slug":"through-the-looking-glass","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/savedali.com\/index.php\/2016\/03\/30\/through-the-looking-glass\/","title":{"rendered":"Through the Looking-Glass"},"content":{"rendered":"

But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves.\u00a0<\/span><\/span>For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man observing his natural face<\/strong> in a mirror;<\/span>\u00a0<\/sup>for he observes himself, goes away, and immediately forgets what kind of man he was. But he who looks into the perfect law of liberty and continues in it,<\/i> and is not a forgetful hearer but a doer of the work, this one will be blessed in what he does.\u00a0– James 1: 22-25<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

One of the most powerful truths about the Word is that it is a Mirror to show us the reality of who we really are.<\/p>\n

And just as a natural mirror will show you eyes, nose, mouth, ears, beauty spot, a tired smile, some spinach stuck in your teeth, your baby sister trying to sneak up behind you…the Mirror of the Word offers you at least as many dimensions of observation.<\/p>\n

For example, the Word will show you who you are, where you are, where you’re going, how you can get there,\u00a0 who’s behind you, who’s in front of you…everything you can imagine, and all the things you can’t imagine are revealed and realised in the Word.<\/p>\n

The problem though is that we don’t really believe the things we see revealed to us in the Mirror of the Word.<\/p>\n

Which is understandable, because what the Word shows us doesn’t seem to line up with what we see and perceive with our natural senses.<\/p>\n

You see a timid man threshing in the winepress (Gideon)…but the Word shows you a mighty man of valor.<\/p>\n

You see a wealthy old man with no heir (Abram)…but the Word shows you a wealthy man who is the father of many nations.<\/p>\n

You see poverty, lack, disease, failure…but the Word shows you wealth, abundance, divine health and good success.<\/p>\n

This mismatch between what we see and what the Word shows would be like smiling at your reflection in the mirror…only to see your reflection frowning back.\u00a0Or staring at your reflection whilst scratching your nose only to see your reflection shaking its head and laughing and pointing at you.<\/p>\n

This lack of synchronicity between your actions and the actions of your reflections might make you doubt that you’re looking at a mirror. In fact, you might suspect that you’re really looking into a window at someone else.<\/p>\n

And that’s the crux of the issue.<\/p>\n

Because the Word reveals a powerful distinction between\u00a0looking at<\/em> something and looking into<\/em> something.<\/p>\n

The natural man simply looks at<\/em> the Word, but the spiritual man (i.e you) looks into<\/strong><\/em> the Word.<\/p>\n

The natural man looks at\u00a0his natural<\/strong><\/em> face, but the spiritual man looks into his\u00a0actual\u00a0<\/strong><\/em>face.<\/p>\n

That’s because\u00a0you died, and your real life is hidden – concealed and covered – with Christ in God. (Colossians 3:3)<\/p>\n

And so instead of you being the object that creates the image in the mirror, the Word is the object and your life is that which reflects the image in the Word.<\/p>\n

(“Let us make man in our image…” – Genesis 1:26)<\/em><\/p>\n

Again: your real life is not any of the stuff that you see with your natural eyes. Instead, it’s all the ‘weird stuff’ that you see reflected in the Word.<\/p>\n

It’s time for you to go through the Looking-Glass to see all the wonderful adventures that await you there.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves.\u00a0For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man observing his natural face in a mirror;\u00a0for he observes himself, goes away, and immediately forgets what kind of man he was. But he who looks into … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “Through the Looking-Glass”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[26],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-69","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","entry"],"jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/savedali.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/savedali.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/savedali.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/savedali.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/savedali.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=69"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/savedali.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/savedali.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=69"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/savedali.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=69"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/savedali.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=69"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}