For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man observing his natural face in a mirror. For he observes himself, goes away, and immediately forgets what kind of man he was. James 1:23,24

Today’s verse seems like an odd comparison. If we listen to the Word and don’t live out the message we hear, we become like the person who looks in the mirror and then forgets what they look like. If we look at the Word…if we gaze upon Jesus and all He is…and forget what we saw, it’s as unnatural as forgetting what we look like… if we’re not doing all the things Jesus did there’s a problem.

2 Corinthians 3:18 tells us that “we with unveiled faces behold as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are changed into his same image… This comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit.” When we look in a mirror what do we see? We see what we look like. And Paul is telling us here Who our mirror is to be. It is to be Jesus. John puts it this way: “as He is so are we in this world” (l Jn 4:17).

Getting back to today’s verse, keep in mind that James doesn’t say, “Hey, you should be ashamed of yourself.” Or “You pathetic person.” Or “Be condemned!” Or “Try harder.” He gets down to the real problem: We’ve been given Jesus’ divine nature (2 Pet 1:14). So when we look in the mirror (spiritually speaking) we should be seeing Jesus. And to forget what we look like becomes the root of our problem in conquering sin.

We’ve forgotten what we saw. This is where the Holy Spirit comes in. He reminds us of what we look like. Through Him, God awakens us to the truth that we’ve been set free from sin… that is in Jesus, since in this world He was without sin, and in this world we are like Jesus.

Again, Paul put it like this: “I have been crucified with Christ it’s no longer I who live but Christ who lives in me” (Gal 2:20). Many of us can quote that Sunday School Scripture so well we forget what it means. It’s the raw, organic, non-GMO gospel. Your identity and mine…our old identity has been co-crucified with Jesus and no longer lives. It’s dead. The nails of His cross crucified us with Him. We have a new life now. Jesus lives his life through you and me—we live in union with Him as He imparts His life into ours.

That is for you and me today. The Spirit continually reminds us of who we are in Jesus as we continually look in the mirror of who He is and say, “Thank you God. It is no longer I who live. I reckon myself dead. Because of Jesus’ sacrifice I no longer exist but Jesus now lives in me.”

We need to be looking in the mirror of the truth of the Word of God… into the mirror of His face and say, “What do I look like?” When temptation comes against us, instead of letting ourselves become defined by temptation, we can let temptation be the thing that causes us to look in the mirror and say, “I used to be somebody that gratified the desires of the sinful nature (Eph 2:3ff). But that’s not who I am anymore (Rom 8:4:ff).

And temptation is so sneaky. We’re often there before we see it coming. But the Spirit unmasks it and shows us that temptation for what it is. He does this by reminding us to look in the mirror: We look in the mirror and immediately see how ridiculous this is. “You’re trying to get me to buy into the lie that that flesh-driven person is me… But I’m looking in the mirror and I see Jesus.”