Mirror, Mirror…

Recently, I made the mistake of purchasing a dual sided mirror.

On one side of the makeup mirror my face looks normal, or at least the face I am used to seeing.

Then, I turn the mirror to the magnified side and….oh my goodness…

I do not recognize that face!

Every flaw is magnified. Every last one.

Wrinkles I have never seen, bumps, tiny moles, stray hairs…oh my!

The first time I looked at my face on the magnified side, I gasped out loud.

I honestly, could not believe how different my face looked from one side to the other!

So, this really got me thinking…what do others see?

Do they see the less magnified, more normal-ish side, or do they see the magnified version?

Yikes.

Soon after seeing myself in 3D version with that mirror, I heard a song on the radio.

The lyrics say…

“Oh! Christ be magnified
Let His praise arise
Christ be magnified in me
Oh! Christ be magnified
From the altar of my life
Christ be magnified in me”

My heart could not help but to be stirred.

Is Christ magnified in my life?

When others see me, do they see Christ?

Is my faith walk like that two sided mirror, where I see myself one way and others see the “real” version?

As I ponder this, I think about the people under my own roof.

What do they see?

These people that live with us on the day to day, they see it all, don’t they?

They see the good, bad, ugly, and everything in between. They definitely see the 3D version.

Desperately, I want to Christ to be magnified to the people under my own roof, and to those around me.

I don’t want to be one way in a bible study and a totally different way outside of the doors of Church.

Listen, I know we will never be perfect or get it right all of the time.

However, I do think that it is important to consistently magnify Christ, no matter who we are with.

I think about my younger years. I loved going to church, but as soon as I stepped outside of those church doors, I was someone else.

It took me a long time to realize that I needed to be consistent with magnifying Christ in my day to day life.

Does this mean perfect? NO.

It just means that we try to put Christ at the very forefront of our thoughts and our actions.

We think about Him and we reflect on Christ’s Character and actions.

We ask God daily to let the Holy Spirit help us with magnifying Him through the Fruits of The Spirit…

 But the Holy Spirit produces this kind of fruit in our lives: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness,  gentleness, and self-control. There is no law against these things! Galatians 5:22-23

When we spend time with Jesus and in His Word on a daily basis, we start to magnify Him and reflect Him.

We began to think like He thinks and act like He acts.

Some days are better than others!

However, our goal is to magnify Him. Not ourselves.

I am thankful for that little dual sided mirror…it reminds me that there are two sides of my life.

One side, God sees.

The other, every one else sees.

The goal is to unify the two and make them both magnify Jesus.

In the mean time, I will be staying on the less magnified side of the mirror, it is a lot less frightening!

“So all of us who have had that veil removed can see and reflect the glory of the Lord. And the Lord—who is the Spirit—makes us more and more like him as we are changed into his glorious image.” 2 Corinthians 3:18

turning that mirror back around,

jill