When you look into a mirror and see something out of place, what do you do about it? Assuming that you drag the comb or brush out to fix your hair, or you grab a washcloth to clean your face, or (if you’re a man) a razor to shave your whiskers or (if you’re a woman) you dab some makeup on your cheeks – why? Why, when you see something in the mirror that is out of place do you do whatever you do to correct it?
If we’re honest we might say something like “So I don’t look bad in public.” Or, “So I don’t embarrass myself.” Or, “In order to look good to my girl, my guy, my husband or my wife;” you get the point. It is that last statement which I suspect drives our desire to respond to the reflection in the mirror of God’s word. My daughter had a friend years ago in our churches youth group who gave the following answer in response to a question about why she dressed up for church, she said: “I dress like this because when I come here, I’m out on a date with God.” She valued the relationship that she had with the Lord and dressed like it. I bring that up because as I said last time, I believe that God’s word is a mirror revealing not so much what is on our faces but rather what is in our hearts and, as a Christian, it is my desire to respond to the reflection of myself that I see when I read the word of God not only in order to please and honor Him but also to represent Him well in this world.
The reality is however, that every believer will enter into eternity still working on the man or the woman in the mirror.
When we are “born again” (John 3:3), we become new creatures (2 Corinthians 5:17):
“Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new.”
Even so, the New Testament is full of instruction like that found in (Colossians 3:8-10):
“But now you yourselves are to put off all these: anger, wrath, malice, blasphemy, filthy language out of your mouth. Do not lie to one another, since you have put off the old man with his deeds, and have put on the new man who is renewed in knowledge according to the image of Him who created him…”
My point is this: in Christ we are made righteous in a moment: “For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.” (2 Corinthians 5:21) That exchange is called justification and it happens the moment we believe in Jesus Christ – we are freely forgiven through God’s grace in Jesus Christ; the burden of our sin having been carried and borne on Christ’s cross and paid for with His blood thousands of years before you were born and applied to your life the moment you believe.
But the process of our ongoing transformation to be like Christ, will take a life time. Think about it, the habits and lifestyles which took a lifetime until we met Jesus to develop will take time to change but one thing WILL change immediately along with our standing before God. As T. W. Hunt wrote in a study called The Mind of Christ – “your want to will change.” You will have seen yourself in the mirror of God’s word and you will want to do something to improve your “appearance” as a child of God.
Such ongoing transformation is called sanctification: an ongoing purification of our souls requiring that rather than being “conformed” to the ways of the world around us (Romans 12:2), we are to be “transformed by the renewing of our minds.” Such a process requires both the mirror of God’s word and the enabling power of God’s Holy Spirit who lives within every believer (Romans 8:9) along with a daily submission to both.
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