Look in the mirror

It’s December 26^th, the day after Christmas. If you are like a good majority of Americans, you have just spent the last month of the Holiday season eating more food than you should have. You step out of the shower, knowing full well that your body cannot possibly look as healthy as it did a month ago. You know that you are going to walk right past a mirror on your way to put on some clothes. The question I have for you is, do you want to look in that mirror to assess the damage done over the last month? Do you actually want to know how much work it is going to take in the New Year to get back into shape?Personally, I don’t like to look in that mirror. I hate staring square in the face of my imperfections, because then I have to admit that I am imperfect. When I look in that mirror, I have to come face to face with the fact that I have been overcome by the pressures of my culture and my sinful desire to overindulge. I see the reality of my inability to live in such a way that I know I was called to live. However, if I don’t look in that mirror, how do I know that I need to change? If I don’t step on the scale to see how many pounds I have put on, how will I even know that I need to lose? Sure, I could just pass by the mirror and the scale every single day, and go on pretending like nothing is wrong. If I do that, though, I will most likely just keep up with poor eating habits and continue to get more unhealthy. It won’t solve the problem. In other words, I can pretend like there isn't a problem, but that doesn't mean the problem doesn't exist.You are probably thinking, “just get on the scale and get to work already!” Eventually, that is what most of us do when it comes to losing that holiday weight. The question I would like to pose is, why do we treat our walk with Jesus so differently? Why do we go through weeks, months, years or even decades struggling with things that we pretend are not even real? Why do we feel the need to give off this perception to others and to ourselves that we are perfect and we have it all together? Why do we attempt to make a complete joke of our struggles in order to avoid feeling the true weight of them?In our spiritual walk, our mirror is Jesus Christ. When we look into that mirror, when we sincerely stop and look into His eyes as He hangs there on that cross, we see two things:

1. We come face to face with who we really are. We see our sin, our imperfections, and our brokenness.
2. We come face to face with who He is. We see our salvation. We see our forgiveness and our restoration. We see an unconditional love beyond anything we ever thought possible; the only true love that can save us from who we really are.

We are very well within our rights to keep walking past that mirror. We can continue on knowing full well that something is not right with our soul, and pretending that everything is fine and we have it all under control. It’s no different than the example of the holiday weight. We can pretend that we don’t need to be saved from ourselves, but it doesn't change the absolute truth that we do.Are you looking into the mirror? Whether we have been walking with Christ for years, or we are debating whether or not to give our life to Him for the very first time, we still need to answer this question constantly. Are you looking into that mirror of His eyes everyday as a way of acknowledging your own imperfections, and allowing the power of what He did on that cross to heal you and change the course of your life? Indeed, there is no one on earth who is righteous, no one who does what is right and never sins (Ecclesiastes 7: 20)."He himself bore our sins" in his body on the cross, so that we might die to sins and live for righteousness; "by his wounds you have been healed" (1 Peter 2:24)"Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest" (Matthew 11: 28).