As in a Mirror

So we had a worship/prayer night for our youth group the other nite. Started off with music led by the team and then moved into prayer & reflection stations. To reflect on God and to pray for our friends, our church, our city & our youth ministry. Admittedly, I was quite preoccupied that night. I had a couple of things on my mind and on my heart and I was finding it really difficult to release control of them to God. I was having trouble worshipping God freely because of these things weighing heavily. I was being disobedient to God because I wasn't committing them to Him. As I moved around the room one of the stations had a big mirror and the sign for the station read something along the lines of...

"And we, who with unveiled faces all reflect the Lord's glory, are being transformed into his likeness with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit." -2 Cor 3:18
Look in the mirror. Do you reflect God's glory?

As I read that last sentence my heart thumped. I didn't want to look in that mirror! I wasn't reflecting God's glory! How could I relfect the glory of God if I wasn't even able to release control of the things in my life and worship Him? I was scared, I didn't want to look in the mirror. I didn't want to see my reflection, the reflection of a sinner.

So I sat down, I avoided the mirror and I sat at the station with my head in my hands and I prayed. I finally released those things I was holding in my heart and I committed them to the Lord. I couldn't do anything to change them, I was just holding onto them and worrying about them. So I committed them to the Lord. I stopped being disobedient to what He was asking me to do. I submitted to His Lordship and I humbled myself. And I felt better.

But as I sat there I realised that regardless of how I felt that night. Regardless of any sin in my life or disbodience or resistance to God, I do reflect God's glory. My reflection in the mirror isn't a true representation of my reflecting God's glory. Colossians 3:3 reads: "For you died when Christ died, and your real life is hidden with Christ in God." When God looks at me, he doesn't see me and my sins. He sees me in Christ. He sees Jesus' holiness, and Jesus' glory. When God looks at me I reflect the glory of Christ. I reflect the glory of God! If you're a Christian, your life is hidden in Christ, you reflect the glory of God! Not from anything good we can do but entirely from God's gift to us: Jesus!

Wow! So I stood up and I looked in the mirror. And I saw Geoff, the sinner. But God didn't, he saw Geoff whose sins are forgiven. He saw the glory of Jesus Christ all over me! The 2 Corinthains passage from the mirror station said that the glory comes from the Lord. Not from us. It comes from God. Thankyou Jesus!