The Mirror Revelation

Window-shopping might be very entertaining but it often keeps one engaged in a

mindset of wishful-thinking.

God is not in the teasing business; making promises that He cannot keep.

For many years we have read the Bible like that; we have window-shopped the
promises of God. Even the most diligent students of scripture became so pre-
occupied with the future that they missed the Messiah in their midst. John 5:39, 40.

Jesus is the central theme of scripture; He is the fullness of time; we are no longer
dealing with a post-dated promise. Luke 24:44-46.

He is the fulfilment of every promise of God that concerns us. He is God’s yes to
you. He is God’s yes to your innocence, to your healing and to your total deliverance
from everything you inherited from the fallen Adamic race! 2 Cor.1:18-20.

His obedience fulfilled every condition of every promise to qualify us to enjoy the full
benefit of every blessing granted to us according to the measure of the gift of Christ.
Rom.5:19, 2 Pet.1:3, Eph.4:7.

So many sincere well meaning Christians are striving daily to become more like
Jesus, without realising the liberating truth that Jesus did not come as an example
for us but of us; the integrity of our original design in the perfect image and likeness
of God was preserved, revealed and redeemed again in Christ, so that we may now,
with unveiled faces, behold the glory of the Lord as in a mirror and be changed into
His likeness, from the fading glory of the flesh, produced by our own efforts, to the
unfading glory of God revealed in us according to our original design and consistent
with the achievement of Christ through His faith and His obedience. 2 Cor.3:18.

All of the enemy’s deception would attempt to blindfold us from seeing this truth.
“The god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers; to keep them from
seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of God in a human face, the face of Christ,
who is the likeness of God!” 2 Cor.4:4, Gen.1:26, Col.2:9,10.

The devil can do nothing without our permission; our ignorance and unbelief
empowers him to deceive us!

The enemy would want us to under-estimate the greatness of the salvation of God;
he did not understand the cross, he doesn’t want you to; “none of the rulers of this
world understood the mystery of God, which God decreed for our glorification; if they
did, they would never have crucified the Lord of glory.” 1 Cor.2:7,8. They did not
realise that Jesus died our death, they thought that He died alone, but in the mind of
God “one died for all, therefore all have died!” 2 Cor.5:14. God did not hide anything
from us, He hid it for us.
The enemy also failed to see our mirror-inclusion in His resurrection, “after two days
He revived us, on the third day He raised us up!” Hos.6:2. “While we were still dead
in our sins, (before we even knew about it, before we believed it!) God made us alive
together with Christ and raised us up together with Him and seated us together with
Him in heavenly places!” Eph.2:5,6. Mankind is represented in the highest seat of
authority in heavenly places! No wonder the devil doesn’t want us to know that!

Religious devotion and zeal cannot do what it takes to present man blameless before
God. Paul says in Rom.10:1-3, “God knows how my heart aches with deep and
prayerful longing for Israel to realise their salvation. I have been there myself, I know
their zeal and devotion; their problem is not their passion, but their ignorance. They
are tirelessly busy with their own efforts to justify themselves while blatantly ignoring
the fact that God already justified them in Christ.” Mirror Translation.

The attraction of Jesus’ life did not present the sinner with a compromised set of
values or a new set of rules, but rather with the mirror reflection of their own
authentic, original identity. In Him the tax-collector and prostitute saw that the life
they lived until that moment was a lie. The father of lies took the human body
hostage to abuse them and give expression in their personalities to his own twisted
and corrupt character, just like any virus would show it’s symptoms in its host-body.

Jesus says that to continue, without distraction in His Word (remember, He is the
Word made flesh, the language of God; He is what God is saying to mankind) we will
know the truth, (about ourselves) and the truth will set us free! Therefore if the Son
sets you free, you are free indeed. John 8:31,32,36.

The truth, as it is in Jesus, (Eph.4:21) reveals the integrity of our original design; God
did not make a mistake when He made you! We are His offspring, He is our true
Father; man began in God. He knew us before He formed us in our mother’s womb!”
Jer.1:5.

“In these last days God has spoken to us in a son, He is the express image of God,
radiating His very likeness in human form. He makes the invisible God visible; if you
have seen me, you have seen the Father.” Col.1:15, Col.2:9, 10, John 14:9.
“Throughout ancient times God spoke in many fragments and glimpses of prophetic
thought to our fathers. Now, the sum total of His conversation with man has finally
culminated in a son; He is the official heir of all things, He is after all the author of the
ages. In Him everything finds their destiny. (Christ is the crescendo of God’s
conversation with us.) He makes the glory (intent) of God visible in radiant reflection,
He gives stature to the character and person of God in human form. (Gen.1:26,27.)
This powerful final utterance of God (the incarnation) is the vehicle that carries the
weight of the universe. He is the central theme of everything that exists.
The content of His message celebrates the fact that God took it upon Himself to
successfully purge and acquit mankind. Jesus is now His right hand of power, seated
in the boundless measure of His majesty. He occupies the highest seat of authority,
there representing our innocence.” Heb. 1:1-3 Mirror Translation.
Jesus did not come to encourage gradual behavioural modification, a futile process
that enslaved the masses for centuries in an inferior lifestyle and constant struggle to
improve their conduct in the hope to eventually win the favour of Deity, and possibly
achieve an acceptable standard approved by God. Man already has the favour of
God, we are the object of God’s love; He loved us even while we were still sinners.

Jesus is God’s good news of great joy which shall be for the entire world. God is well
pleased with man! Jesus is the word that proceeds from the mouth of God, the eye
of the fountain.

The good news is that He did not come to exhibit the life of God as in a display
window, but as the mirror image of our design. He is the blueprint of our being.
His life, death and resurrection confirm our true identity and innocence. When we
hear the word of truth, we see the face of our birth as in a mirror, we see ourselves,
so that we may now know the way we have always been known! 1 Cor.13:12.

“Test yourselves, examine yourselves to see whether you are holding to your faith,
do you not realise that Jesus Christ is in you?!” Faith reveals the truth about you.
This examination is not an experiment; it is the ultimate conclusion of the revelation
of Christ, the Word that was from the beginning, the Word that is God, became flesh
and dwells within us! 2 Cor.13:5, John 1:1,14. (Some translations say, “and dwells
amongst us,” the Greek says, “within us.”)

Jesus did not come to condemn the world, He came to take our sins, diseases,
inferiority, condemnation and guilt upon Himself in a human body; a body exactly like
our own in order to nullify sin’s authority over human life; had He accomplished this
in a type of “Spider man’s suit” or a super human body, His redemption would have
been invalid and meaningless to us. He did not come to reveal a new upgraded
model of the human being. He vindicated our design to be the image and likeness of
God. He did not come in an angelic body; His only valid passport to visit this planet
was the womb of a woman!

The Creator God camouflaged in flesh makes Him the only individual that would ever
qualify to represent all of God and all of humanity in the same person! 2 Cor.5:19.

The mirror reveals that, “surely, He was wounded for our transgressions, He was
bruised for our iniquities, the chastisement that brought us peace was upon Him, and
by His stripes we were healed!” Is.53:4,5.

All of Scripture is about Jesus; the mirror reveals that all of Jesus is about us!

When Jesus died and was raised it wasn’t for Himself it was for us!
He didn’t have a problem with sin, bondage and disease, we did.
Look at Romans 4:25, “He was handed over (to judgement) because of our
transgressions, and raised from the dead because of our righteousness!”
Many translations does the first half of the sentence correct but then translate the
same Greek word, dia, in the second part incorrectly, they would say, for, or so that
we can be justified. Big difference! If we were not already justified because of His
obedience, He could not be raised from the dead.
The cross = our sins; the resurrection = our innocence.
We are dealing with an already saved, delivered, healed and innocent world!
Our reference is Christ; therefore we herald good news of great joy which is relevant
to the entire world!

Now we are His ambassadors, God pleads through us to an already reconciled world
to be reconciled. Note that he does not say, become reconciled, he says be
reconciled. Jesus says, be perfect, not become perfect, be holy, not become holy. In
the story of the beautiful swan, the ‘ugly duckling’ did not see a potential swan that
could possibly resemble the swan life after many years of education and plastic
surgery!

The resurrection was the final evidence of mankind’s vindication and new birth. Peter
writes that we were born anew into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus
from the dead. 1 Pet.1:3.

Paul preaches the resurrection in Acts 13 and quotes Psalm 2 in this regard, “Today I
have begotten you!”

“Can a nation be born in one day, a people be brought forth in one moment?” Isaiah
66:8.

“For as by a man came death, by a man has come the resurrection of the dead; for
as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive.” 1 Cor.15:21,22.

There was a time when not one of Jesus’ immediate family believed in Him. Jn. 7:5.
Then after His resurrection, Jesus deliberately appeared also to James.
1Cor.15:7,17. Suddenly James understands that man’s true origin is not his mother’s
womb, confirmed by his birth certificate, but that we indeed come from above. “Every
good and perfect gift comes from above, (the same Greek word translated born
again in John 3:3) we come from above, we were brought forth by the Father of light,
by the word of truth. The truth about man’s genesis is revealed in Christ as in a
mirror, “for when anyone hears this word, he sees himself, the face of his birth as in
a mirror.” James 1:17-25. To go away, back to the old mindset, causes us to
immediately forget what manner of man we are. We deceive ourselves through
double mindedness.

In Deut.32:18 Moses says that we have forgotten the Rock of our origin, the God
who gave birth to us. And in verse 3 and 4 he says, “I will declare the Name of the
Lord, ascribe greatness to our God the Rock, His work is perfect...”

“Look to the Rock from which you were hewn, and the quarry from which you were
dug.” Is.51:1.

“His body was laid in a rock-hewn tomb, where no one had ever yet been laid. Luke
23:53.
Blessed are you Simon, son of Jonah, now that you have a revelation of who I am,
let me tell you who you are; you are Rock, and upon this Rock-foundation I will build
my original Surname (ekklesia.) Math.16:13-18. The purpose of the ekklesia-church
is to introduce man again to his original identity, to mirror the image and likeness of
God in human form. He is the most attractive life we can ever participate in.

“Every good and perfect gift comes from above...”

“We are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works...” Eph.2:10.

We are perfect and complete and lacking in nothing, every temptation and
contradiction we may encounter would seek to persuade us that we are imperfect in-
complete and in lack. James 1:2-4.

The mirror revelation does not show our imperfections; sometimes we become
confused between our realities, our experiences and the truth as it is in Christ.
Knowing our shortcomings does not set us free; knowing the truth of His perfect work
in us awakens our faith to believe what God believes concerning us and to enter His
rest where we cease from our own struggles. This is freedom indeed! James calls it
the law of perfect freedom. James 1:25.

“The difference between a mere spectator and a performer is that both of them hear
the same voice and perceive in its message the face of their own genesis reflected
as in a mirror; they realize that they are looking at themselves, but for the one it
seems just too good to be true, he departs (back to his old way of seeing himself)
never giving another thought to the man he saw there in the mirror. The other one is
mesmerized by what he sees; he is captivated by the effect of a law that frees man
from the obligation to the old written code that restricted him to his own efforts and
willpower. No distraction or contradiction can dim the impact of what he sees in that
mirror concerning the law of perfect liberty (the law of faith) that now frees him to get
on with the act of living the life (of his original design.) He finds a new spontaneous
lifestyle; the poetry of practical living. (Understanding the mirror identity of man
perfects the law of liberty; look deep enough into the law of liberty that you may see
there in its perfection a portrait that so resembles the original that He becomes
distinctly visible in the face of every man you behold) Meaningless conversation is
often disguised in religious eloquence. Just because it sounds sincere, doesn't make
it true. If your tongue is not bridled by what your heart knows to be true about you,
you cheat yourself.” James 1:23-26 Mirror Translation.

Anchor your persuasion in God’s opinion of you; God is not confused about you; He
is not double-minded; He is the Father of light with whom there is no variableness or
shadow due to change.

The testimony of God is greater than the testimony of man. 1 John 5:9
Only when we discover what happened to us when Jesus died and was raised, do
we have a reference of absolute authority to defeat the lies of our weaknesses and
inferiorities.

In South Africa we often allow ourselves through ignorance to continue to feel

disadvantaged and defeated.

The economy is not the measure of your life, your history or political situation does
not qualify to measure you...

Christ is the only accurate measure of our lives; He is the exact blueprint of our
design, the image and likeness of God in human form!

When He died, we died, the old things have passed away, BEHOLD, all things have
become new! Note that Paul does not say behold the old, he says behold the new!
This truth is not just true for a select few, it is true for you!
“One died for all, therefore all have died” says Paul in 2 Cor.5:14.
“From now on THEREFORE, I no longer know any man from a human point of view,
even though we once knew Christ from a human point of view, we know Him thus no
longer!” (:16,17)
Paul says the way we know Christ is the way we know ourselves!

When we know and even worship Christ from a mere historic point of view we miss
the point; we might even feel very emotional and sentimental about Christmas and
Easter and shed a few sincere tears, but we will never know His life transforming
power there!
The miracle of transformation only takes place in the mirror, nothing changes when
we’re in window-shopping-mode! 2 Cor.3:18.

Many sincere people of all religions and philosophies (including Christianity) worship
God, or their definition of divinity in ignorance, but the Creator God in whom we live
and move and have our being, whose offspring all men are, has overlooked the
times of ignorance and now appeals to all men everywhere to come to a radical
change of mind, because His righteous judgement fell on Christ and He has given
assurance of this to all men by raising Him from the dead. Acts 17:30,31.

As far as God is concerned the acquittal of the human race is accomplished.

Now we have something of substance to declare and believe!
Truth doesn’t become true after you believe it, it’s been true all along!
Water doesn’t become H2O when you drink it, it’s been H2O all along!
Drink it and it will quench your thirst!
Your faith does not invent truth; truth awakens your faith.

What an insult to the cross, and accusation to our silence, if all we see is how sinful
and wicked this world is; while the mirror reveals that something happened to
mankind in Christ that is out of all proportion to Adam’s transgression. Rom.5:15-21.
Paul’s place of contentment had nothing to do with a rumour that he would be
released from prison in two weeks time; he learned the secret to be totally satisfied
in Christ, in abundance and in lack; whether people spoke well of him or gossiped
about him.
Abundance cannot add to completeness, neither can any definition of lack take away
from it.
Abundance is not a sign of God’s goodness, neither is lack a sign of His absence!

In Christ we live an unthreatened life.

We face the same storms, but it is the rudder of our conversation and persuasion
that makes the difference.
Caleb and Joshua saw the same giants, but they had a different measure of
themselves, certainly not the grasshopper size!

“We have the same spirit of faith as he had who wrote, ’I believe and so I speak’ we
too believe, and so we speak!” 2 Cor.4:13.

The immediate benefit of discovering the mirror revelation is the joy of an unlimited
intimate place of enjoying God, and then to know the constraining love of Christ
reaching out to others through you!

Your life is the extension of God’s love for every man; His mirror-voice to mankind.

I conclude with this striking story of the release of a Black Eagle from the Pretoria
Zoo. During our honeymoon in January 1979, Lydia and I met a Conservation Officer
who told us of this dramatic incident that happened a week prior to our visit at the
Blyde River Canyon. This bird was captive for ten years.

Great was the excitement amongst the Conservation people when the big wooden
crate wherein the eagle was transported, arrived at the Canyon.

They opened the cage door and held their breath, but sadly the Eagle would not fly.
It was one thing to get the bird out of the cage, but how does one get the cage out of
the bird?

After many frustrating hours, they suddenly heard the call of another Black Eagle!
Immediately the once captive bird looked up and seconds later took off and started
circling with the other eagle!

When the stone was rolled away, the grave was opened for every man.