Do you ever just take a good look at yourself in the mirror? I mean just stop what you’re doing and look?
I’ll be honest, sometimes it is very hard to look at myself, see blemishes and not try to cover up or justify them. I don’t want others to see my faults or failures. I want everyone to see someone who has it all together. I want to have every thing in my appearance to be nice and presentable as well. But what really matters is what the Lord sees and what others see of my heart. My heart is deceitful and desperately wicked. (Jeremiah 17:9) I cannot depend upon my own heart to tell me everything is A-Ok. I have to turn to SomeOne who has the best mirror. It takes humility to truly accept what that reflection is showing and to accept it as it truly speaks. If you know me then you know I am an open book. So, today I will just tell you some things I’ve seen when I stopped and took a good look in this mirror of God’s Word.
Examine yourselves, whether ye be in the faith; prove your own selves. Know ye not your own selves, how that Jesus Christ is in you, except ye be reprobates?
2 Corinthians 13:5
In 2 Corinthians Paul is coming to the church of Corinth for the third time and tells them to stop and do that very thing. When I read this chapter I felt the intensity of Paul’s admonition. Do I want the Lord have to come to me the third time about something His Spirit has dealt with me about? No, but He so graciously has. He’s gracious and merciful and oh so longsuffering. Oh how thankful I am that He doesn’t give up on me.
The first thing the Mirror of the Lord asks me is How Passionate am I as His Child? Do I see the need of others and just pass on by? Do I fail to pray for my sister whose heart is broken? Do I just mark someone’s lack of monetary needs as that’s just their cross to bear? Am I excited to serve Him? Do I deeply desire to live as He lived? In 1 John 3:17 “But whoso hath this world’s good, and seeth his brother have need, and shutteth up his bowels of compassion from him, how dwelleth the love of God in him?” Sometimes a physical need isn’t made known to the public, BUT if the love of God is living in me His Spirit will give me discernment (seeth) to see a need without seeing a need. Have you ever felt like you should do something for someone and pushed that thought aside thinking Oh that’s so and so they’ve got it all together or I have need myself? Yes my friend I have been so guilty of this. Where is my passion as His child? Where is the love that lives within me? My love should be to the next degree, compassionate. It pleases my Father when I exercise His love to them and in return it proves my love to Him. When I fail to examine or put to test my passion to love like He does, then how is His love perfected in me? I want His Love to shine more brightly than anything in my life. Spirit, please lead me to a sister who has a need today and grow my passion for You.
His Mirror has no flaws or false delusions. What this Mirror shows me is truth. Am I a Professional Christian? What I mean by this is, Has my Bible time become just a duty of the day? Has my prayer time fizzled to just the necessaries and prayer requests? Have I put on the garments of Christianity and made sure I’m daily doing what’s required of me? This hit me hard. I thought back to when I got saved and how the Word of the Lord came alive to me. I couldn’t get enough of it. Prayer time was more about being thankful and worshiping the Lord and less about me and my woes. Daily service for the Lord was burning within me. It wasn’t tiresome and just something I’m supposed to do. I have become a professional of doing all the right things but leaving out the Passion, desire, drive for my dear Saviour. It’s so easy when trials are coming one after another. We just dress up and go and leave out the most important part of our service for him-Our Love for Him. 1 John 3:18 “My little children, let us not love in word, neither in tongue; but in deed and truth.” I want my walk to talk louder than my talk. I can say all the right words, put on all the right clothes but what matters most is my heart. Spirit, draw me closer to You today. Help me fall more in love with You. Rekindle that fire in my soul to live every day in Your Presence.
I remember as little girl looking at myself in the mirror to see if I had grown any. It’s the same way looking into God’s Mirror. Am I a Progressive Christian? Is my daily walk with Him making me more like Him? When I first got saved there were so many things that changed about me- The places I went, people I talked to, how I dressed, music I listened to. So many outward things changed but it wasn’t only that. it was me-who I was. I no longer talked the same, my attitude changed. I saw things differently about myself and just wanted to love the Lord Jesus with everything I was because He forgave someone like me. I can look at all those changes at salvation and its all good but am I still changing? Every single day of my life something should change in me. I should be growing and becoming more like Jesus. He is everything lovely, am I? 2 Peter 1:5-8 says “And beside this, giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue; and to virtue knowledge; And to knowledge temperance; and to temperance patience; and to patience godliness; And to godliness brotherly kindness; and to brotherly kindness charity. For if these things be in you, and abound, they make you that ye shall neither be barren (idle) nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.” Lord, make me more like You. Change me, break me and mold me until I think like You, walk as You walked, and love as You love.
Every day I pray I take a daily look into the Mirror of His Word. I want the Light of His Love to shine in every thing I do, say or am. I hope that is your prayer as well.
Take a look in His Mirror today, what do you see?