Man in the Mirror

Greater Grace Christian Fellowship is a local church that teaches salvation is a free gift for all who come by faith to Jesus Christ.

That’s the message of the Gospel.

Too often people who are searching in life find another gospel, one that says you have to measure up to a particular standard. One that causes a person to strive to be better, but does not provide the love that’s needed for an individual to grow up into what The Father has planned for their lives.

When a baby is born well-meaning friends and family members often compare the looks of the baby to the father or mother. The truth is it’s very rare that there are distinguishing attributes that can be compared to the parents. That’s why each child is so carefully labeled so that they don’t get switched by accident with another.

Just as a new born baby looks very little like its parents, a new born Christian resembles very little his Heavenly Father. It takes a while to grow. Change doesn’t happen outwardly right away. When we try to push a new Christian into doing spiritual things they don’t understand, they experience failure and get condemned that they couldn’t live up to the standard set for them. Would you put an infant behind the wheel of a car and expect him to drive? Of course not! Then why do we expect brand new believers to perform miracles in their behavior and relationships?

A few years ago I was shaving in the morning and I as I looked in the mirror I saw someone I never saw there before. Dad, is that you? There was no mistaking it. My father was looking back at me from the mirror. As I get older I see him more often sometimes in the physical sense and other times in the way I talk, deal with people or even when I get angry. I remind me of him. In a real sense I am him. He made me. I have his genetic code.

God made me too. I am His creation, but now since I placed my trust in Him, I’m also His son. “But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, to those who believe in His name: who were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God” (John 1:12-13).

As His son,  I don’t always look like Him or act like Him, but as I  mature in my understanding I begin to resemble His likeness in kindness, patience, love and forgiveness.  

As much as we may love our earthly father, we really want that Man in the mirror to be our Heavenly Father as He has changed us into His image. “Beloved, now we are children of God; and it has not yet been revealed what we shall be, but we know that when He is revealed, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is (1 John 3:2).