Break your mirrors.

“We do not dare classify or compare ourselves with some who commend themselves. When they measure themselves by themselves and compare themselves with themselves, they are not wise” (2 Cor. 10.12).

Sometimes I worry about us. With our conscience as our guide and the mirror as our model, I think perhaps we have come to a dreadful conclusion. Most of us, I would guess, aren’t naïve enough to presume that we’re fine. But I fear that at times we are foolish enough to believe that it is fine that we’re not fine. We rest on God’s promises of forgiveness and patience but close our ears to His exhortations to faith and perseverance. Are we content with our sinful autonomy? Do we refuse to consider our rebellious state? “If you love me, you will do what I command” is often hastily pushed aside in favor of softer, friendlier passages. “If he has made us, if he has redeemed us, if he has preserved us in being, it is but His due that we should be His servants”(Charles Spurgeon. A Good Start. 64). Yet we, God’s very children, continue to say secretly “‘well, I do not want to be a servant.’ You cannot help it my friend; you cannot help it. You must be a servant of somebody. ‘Then I will serve myself,’ says one. Pardon me, brave sir, if I whisper in your ear that if you serve yourself you will serve a fool. The man who is the servant of himself—listen to this sentence—the man who is the servant of himself is the slave of a slave; and I cannot imagine a more degrading position for a man to be in than to be the slave of a slave. You will assuredly serve somebody. You will wear fetters, too, if you serve the master that most men choose” (Spurgeon 67).

These words of Spurgeon are addressed to unbelievers—but are they also true of us? Are we God’s at heart because of Christ yet continuing to live as slaves to ourselves? “Don’t you know that when you offer yourselves to someone to obey him as slaves, you are slaves to the one you obey—whether you are slaves to sin, which leads to death, or to obedience, which leads to righteousness” (Rom. 6.16)? “We died to sin; how can we live in it any longer” (Rom 6.1)? Let s stop making ourselves and each other the standard of righteousness. Consider instead the example of Christ and the lives of those spoken of by the writer of Hebrews:

“Others were tortured and refused to be released, so that they might gain a better resurrection. Some faced jeers and flogging, while still others were chained and put in prison. They were stoned; they were sawed in two; they were put to death by the sword. They went about in sheepskins and goatskins, destitute, persecuted and mistreated—the world was not worthy of them. They wandered in deserts and mountains, and in caves and holes in the ground. These were all commended for their faith, yet none of them received what had been promised. God had planned something better for us so that only together with us would they be made perfect” (Heb. 11. 35-40).

Something better for us! But look at our lives in comparison. What would Hebrews 11 read were it written of us? Is this world unworthy of us? No? Then let us strive for perfection! Let us seek to submit ourselves daily to the Lordship of Christ. Let us do something to move away from where we are towards the life of faith modeled for us in Scripture.

Hebrews 12:4 says “in your struggle against sin you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood.”

This is the kind of devotion we should desire. But if we are our own role models, how will we ever achieve it?

How will we achieve it? How is sin made less and less attractive? Where do we find the power to live like we should—to think and feel like we should? I think we need to pray with Paul that our eyes will be opened to the greatness of the true God; the real riches of His love. I think we begin to escape our self-induced enslavement when we start to see our God as the master he really is; as the master who is worth serving.

“I keep asking that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, may give you the Spirit of wisdom and revelation, so that you may know him better. I pray also that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints, and his incomparably great power for us who believe. That power is like the working of his mighty strength, which he exerted in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly realms, far above all rule and authority, power and dominion, and every title that can be given, not only in the present age but also in the one to come” (Eph. 1.17-21).

Here is our role model; here is our standard, the glorious Son of God. "Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of God. Consider him who endured such opposition from sinful men, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart" (Heb. 12.2,3).