Skinny Mirrors

A couple weeks ago I had to go shopping for a full-length mirror.  It didn’t take me long to find one I loved - one that made me look GREAT!  Who knew all I had to do to lose weight and gain height was to purchase a cheap mirror at Walmart!  
 
Of course it was a skinny mirror.  Like one of those fun mirrors at a circus that elongates you because it has been curved just so.  This one, of course, was not so obvious, but it was certainly not accurate, I could tell that.  Completely unrelated side note: I cannot talk about skinny mirrors without thinking of Elaine in an old Seinfeld episode.  It is an unavoidable side effect of life if you are well past the Millennial generation like I am.  The same with junior mints, man-hands, returning cans and double dipping.  Ok, got that out of the way so we can move on.
 
It was a real temptation to buy a mirror that made me look so good, even if it was not an accurate image.  It made me feel better about myself and it was cheap.  Nearly a win-win.  Except...it wasn't real.  It wasn’t the truth.  I put it back and bought a real mirror.  Yep, I looked a little chunky but hey, it's accurate.
 
The truth is too many people I know buy into the skinny mirror mentality.  Especially when it comes to spiritual matters.  They are perfectly content to be fed un-truths that make them feel beautiful and secure.  When in reality they are neither of those things.  They don’t know the truth because they are using the wrong mirror.
 
In James 1:22-25 we read that the Word of God is the mirror we are to use for our lives.
 
“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.”
 
When we gaze into the perfect Word of God, we get a glimpse of who we are in light of who God is.  We begin to understand that we are disgusting sinners in desperate need of a Savior.  We see that wrath is coming for our raging against God in this life.  We see that our good works apart from Christ are nothing.  We see that much of what we have been told is a lie - church attendance, communion, baptism - none of that will save you.  We see the truth that Jesus is our only hope, he is the only way to salvation.
 
That may be one big reason so few read the Bible, they don’t want to see the truth of their souls.  They would rather hide and (wrongly) assume they are okay.  They would rather hang out admiring themselves in front of their skinny mirrors.  They would rather have their ears tickled by the words of others who tell them they are good people.  “For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions,” 2 Tim. 4:3.

Ladies, don’t buy the skinny mirror.  Don’t do it.  It will be cheap and easy now but cost dearly in the end.  There will be a time when the truth is made known.  Those who spent their time admiring themselves instead of conforming their image to that of their savior, Jesus Christ will be brought low - into the Pit.  That is the only place for those who believe and live out lies.

Ladies, face the truth, desire nothing else but the truth!  Find it in the “perfect law, the law of liberty” and persevere in it. The Words of God are truth - read them, hear them, do them.  In that you will “be blessed."

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