Today's Bible Study, Authored by Arthur
Cincotti. 10/2/2022
Listen to our Bible
Study Discussion at: Something's Wrong with My Mirror? Podcast
Or watch the Video Zoom Session of our Study on YouTube: Something's Wrong with My Mirror? om YouTube
Something’s Wrong with my
Mirror??
The Christian faith is
replete with paradoxes.
You have to die in order to truly live
In order to be greatest you must become servant to all
We only love God because He first loved us.
Get out of financial bondage, give more.
Seek first the kingdom of God… all else will be added to you
Perhaps the biggest
paradoxical notion is that, as if it were some sort of self help program, when
we become a Christian we will get better.
First and foremost this
submits the idea that “better” is the goal.
The truth is that holiness
is the goal. I Pet. 1:15
Indeed, the surrounding
verses in I Pet. 1 encourage us toward repentance and good works, but Gods’
standard for fellowship with Him is holiness.
This understanding perpetuates the doctrine of salvation by
grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone. We could never strive to be
good enough to merit fellowship with God.
The problem is that, with
careful, and honest self observation, we seem
to get worse.
As we seek to “bring every
thought into captivity,” (II Cor. 10:5) we realize the monumental need to.
As we seek to do, “good
works, which God hath before ordained that
we should walk in,” (Eph 2:10) they seem fewer and far between.
As we aim to live for Christ,
(Gal. 2:20) the need to daily pray, “forgive
me my trespasses” and “lead me not into temptation becomes more pressing.
The apostle Paul likewise
seemed to express this backward regress.
In Gal. 1:1, his earliest
known letter, he calls himself, “an apostle...”
In I Cor. 15:9 he is
suddenly, “the least of the apostles, who am not worthy to be called an apostle.”
In Eph. 3:8 he has slipped
to, “less than the least of all the saints.”
By I Tim 1:15 he considers
himself, “chief of sinners”.
Did he get worse???
The truth is that as we draw
nearer to Christ, and glimpse His holiness, we are undone, and sense that even
our greatest works are as filthy rags. Is. 64:6
Yet, in I Cor. 4:4, Paul
says, “For I know of nothing against myself”. Has he forgotten that he
persecuted the church, (Phil. 3:6) or that “I was formerly a blasphemer, a
persecutor, and an insolent man…”?
No, because, as he goes on to
say, “but I did it ignorantly in unbelief. And the grace of out Lord was
exceedingly abundant, with faith and love which are in Christ Jesus.” I Tim.
1:13,14
“We see now in a mirror,
dimly” I Cor. 13:12. I liken this, sometimes, to glimpsing an image in a
kaleidoscope, but then it vanishes. We sense for a moment that we know God, as
if we have touched the hem of His garment, but then that moment is gone.
“But we all, with unveiled
face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed
into the same image from glory to glory, just as by the Spirit of the Lord.” II
Cor. 3:18. This is a process. As we hold our lives up to the mirror of Gods’
word we may feel convicted. That’s a good thing. We may feel as though
we haven’t changed much, but His promise is that, “we are being transformed…”
“For if anyone is a hearer of
the word and not a doer, he is like a man observing his natural face in a
mirror: for he observes himself, goes away, and immediately forgets what kind
of man he was” Js. 1:23 We mustn’t depart from the mirror of God’s word in fear
or neglect, but we should write it on the tablet of our hearts.
“Your word, I have hidden in my heart,
That I might not sin against You. Ps. 119:11
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Encouragement for the Path of Christian Discipleship
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