Take a look and see if what you think you see is actually what is seen...
"You have grease
on your face," I said to a friend while working on a car. He did nothing.
Later on, I told him again. Again, he did nothing. Some time after that, we
were riding to the store, he looked in the mirror and said, "Whoa! Wow, I
do have grease on my face. I didn't know it was that much."
Mirror don't lie.
"As in water face
reflects face, so the heart of man reflects the man." (Proverbs 27:19 ESV)
Looking into a mirror
is a fairly easy, very accurate exercise. We can see what we look like, if
something is indeed on our face, our hair is out of place, or any other physical
inspection we'd like to investigate.
And, in looking to a
friend or other person, "face reflects face" for we will surely find
some similarities and some difference in each other. We'll find reason to
commend and reason to condemn. In the end though, we'll find that we both are
lacking. We cannot look at another and judge whether we are okay; we need to
look to Jesus.
Looking into the heart
is different. Our hearts will fool us (see Jeremiah 17:9). The "heart of
man reflects the man" for sure, but we are often able to hide our nature
through disingenuous speech and behavior. We'll fool others about our hearts,
and our hearts will fool us about ourselves!
We need God's help. We
need God to look at our hearts and tell us about ourselves. One Proverb says,
"Every way of a man is right in his own eyes, but the LORD weighs the
heart." (21:2 ESV) In other words, it's easy for us to think our ways and
actions are right, but God is the one that really knows the deal.
What we really need to
do is lay our hearts -- motives, affections, intentions, etc. -- before the
Word of God, and be tested in that way. Pay careful attention to the what the
Spirit delivered to us through the writer of Hebrews: "Let us therefore
strive to enter that rest, so that no one may fall by the same sort of
disobedience. For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any
two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and
of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart. And no
creature is hidden from his sight, but all are naked and exposed to the eyes of
him to whom we must give account." (4:11-13 ESV)
And, let us give heed
to what the Spirit says through the Apostle James: "But be doers of the
word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves. For if anyone is a hearer of
the word and not a doer, he is like a man who looks intently at his natural
face in a mirror. For he looks at himself and goes away and at once forgets
what he was like. But the one who looks into the perfect law, the law of
liberty, and perseveres, being no hearer who forgets but a doer who acts, he
will be blessed in his doing." (James 1:22-25 ESV)
Using God's word as a
mirror, we will discover that we are many times not the people we want to be or
the type of people He wants us to be. It will reveal our deep need of Him. The
great thing is He is ready and willing to advocate for us and work in us to
shape us into the image of Jesus.
Let us, then, not be
afraid to look. We may find we are not who we want to be, but God is good, and
He is willing to receive us, ready to transform us and able to complete us.
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