This Is What God Actually Sees When He Looks at You

Set out to reflect Jesus like a mirror and you come face-to-face with your list of what you lack. Your squabbles and squeamish fears, your flat-out insecurity and sneaky pride. The features you’d change. The less-thans and not-likes and labels confirming your unworth.

We fall short, not just daily, but moment by moment. We partially trust, partially surrender, partially talk, walk, and speak like Him. But we fixate on all the ways we don’t. The times we’ve strayed or chosen our will over His. The times we’ve tried and tumbled.

Reflect Christ? We’re sure we’re a sad reflection of the Jesus we love in all our imperfect best. So we approach the mirror hesitantly. Perhaps shame or sorrow slows our steps. Maybe our eyes meader because we don’t want to stare at a searing display of failure and inadequacy.

And yet, inch a little closer and peek up just a bit. I think you’ll see light, brilliant and warm, seeping beyond the edges of the mirror, filling the space around your feet. Gather all your courage and behold the mirror. Lean toward that hushed and holy light. Because that’s what God sees when He looks at you.

Light so bright you can’t see anything else.

Holiness wholly refined.

Radiant righteousness.

Paul explains it like this in 2 Cor. 5:21.

He orchestrated this: the Anointed One, who had never experienced sin, became sin for us so that in Him we might embody the very righteousness of God.

The Voice

God sees His Son when He looks at us. His perfect, royal Son Jesus–the gift we don’t deserve and could never earn.

All that Jesus is–untainted and infinitely holy–is what reflects back to God when we step away from our old life and into His welcome.

He’s not looking at the spots we didn’t scrub clean, the cover-ups and colliding emotions, the closet skeletons and stories we keep secret. His heart swells to bursting with adoration because He loves you as He loves His Son–with everything in His great, Daddy heart.

Robes of Righteousness

As we embark on a month of intentional gratitude through the #ReflectJesus challenge, naming Jesus’ features as mirrored back to us by people in our lives, I want your heart to know how deeply you’re treasured. I pray the challenge invites you to reflect on the great work God is doing in and around you, to more fully grasp facets of God’s unchanging nature, and to see yourself and others through God’s lens.

Today, I especially pray that you’ll catch a glimpse of yourself in the mirror—the way God sees you, covered in His robes of righteousness.

Worthy—because He’s worthy of more praise and adoration than we could ever offer.

Pure—because He makes us “white as snow” and “clean again like new wool” (Isaiah 1:18, The Voice).

Welcome–because you have unhindered, unlimited access to Him when you’re overshadowed by His untainted righteousness.

Here’s another picture to ponder. It’s one painted in the book of Isaiah as a description of what it looks like–and what it sparks–to be adorned in robes of Christ’s righteousness.

I will sing and greatly rejoice in YAHWEH! My whole being vibrates with shouts of joy in my God! For he has dressed me with salvation and wrapped me in the robe of his righteousness! I appear like a bridegroom on his wedding day, decked out with a beautiful sash, or like a radiant bride adorned with sparkling jewels.

Isaiah 61:10, TPT

Note the exuberant joy and declarations of praise that rise from knowing how we’re dressed—in the essence of Jesus. The extravagant beauty of His holy robe.

It’s brilliant light and exquisite splendor. Like God sees you as royalty. A daughter with worth higher than words can describe.

The Already Truth

Every Friday over on Instagram I share my favorite quote from a book I’m reading. Last Friday fell on November 1st, the first day of the #ReflectJesus challenge, and I picked a line from Rachel Kang’s book Let There Be Art that directly addresses how God sees us.

Pause here with me, and let’s read together: “There is nothing in God’s being that bases our worth off inferences, or preferences, or experiences, or hand-me-down histories.”

You are not the sum of your past or future mistakes. You’re not too shy or too direct or too much to reflect Jesus to your family and neighbors. You are His. Paid for and redeemed. Draped in righteousness. Clean as a spotless mirror.

You’re not too shy or too direct or too much to reflect Jesus to your family and neighbors.(Twyla Franz quote)

When we’re reconciled with Christ through faith and by grace we get to simply lean into Him and let Him shine through us. We leave behind the ways we want to produce Christ-like character on our own and instead give God open access to the deep places in our hearts.

He’ll heal and re-name, rearrange and redeem. It’s not an all-at-once process, but an ongoing tending.

But here’s the truth that’s rattling me this week: as we’re believing and becoming, as we’re learning to behave as His beloved, we already reflect Him. We’re already dressed in His righteousness.

We’re already light-bearers, bringing a taste of Jesus to the people near us, joining God’s mission to fill the earth with His glory. And so are the people in our periphery.

The Ripple Effect

There’s a correlation between accepting the way God sees us and identifying Him in other people.

Rachel Kang says it this way:

And when we believe in the gaze of God, believe that he created and called us good, our brains will bend and bow to believe in beauty BEYOND ourselves. We will learn to see the beauty in all of God’s people.

We won’t just learn to see the good in others.

We will learn to see GOD in others.

Let There Be Art

It goes both ways. Look for God displayed in others and you’ll grow your desire to imitate Him too. Revel in the ways you already reflect Jesus–not out of your effort or ingenuity, but because of what He’s done for you–and you find God mirrored in other people too.

Two things as we close:

1–It’s not too late to join the #ReflectJesus challenge! Grab the challenge prompts below and I’ll pop into your inbox the rest of the month with daily prayers to help you and I reflect Jesus like a mirror.

2–Here’s a final prayer for you:

God, we’re humbled by the worth and beauty You see in us. What generous love that You call us dearly beloved and see us as You see Your Son. Help us to extend Your glory and welcome everywhere our feet land. May we point all the praise to You.

Just a friend over here in your corner,