A glazier is an artisan responsible for cutting, installing, and removing glass.
God is a glazier.
Imagine this: we have this mirror. And the mirror’s job is to show sin. All our ugliness, all our junk, all the things we cannot hide from ourselves, and some stuff that no other people get to see. Mirrors tell the truth. And the truth is that for all of us, sin is a big problem—a deathly big problem.
Our mirror is looking busted—there are cracks everywhere, the glass won’t stay polished, the frame is chipped and peeling away. This mirror looks worthless. And we know we cannot fix it. But what if God gives us a new mirror?
god gets to mirror making
Jesus. The Son. The Christ.
Jesus who emptied himself and became one of us, who was humble and obedient even to death.
Jesus came, lived, died, and resurrected to rescue us from the sin we see in the mirror.
We were incapable of rescuing ourselves. So God, being “merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness,” took it upon himself to rescue us (Exodus 34:6). Jesus’s rescue of us comes at his own shame, humiliation, and death. Sin brings death and enslavement to all of us. The only way to conquer sin—to bring life and freedom to all of us—is for a sinless person to die. And who can achieve a sinless life except Christ, who is both fully human and fully divine?
Jesus died to bring us life in place of death and freedom instead of bondage.
new mirror, new you
Because of Jesus, we get life and freedom. And we get a new mirror to see ourselves. Gone is the mirror of sin and death. We’ve got something priceless now, handcrafted frames and polished glass that doesn’t crack. Jesus’s death gives us the opportunity to replace the vision of us in the mirror with himself. Because, “if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new is come” (2 Corinthians 5:17). And the new “us” that we get isn’t a “human being round two.”
This is salvation by grace. We can now put on the new self, “which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator” (Colossians 3:10).
The girl in the mirror is forgiven, redeemed, renewed, indwelled and empowered with the Holy Spirit. She now has the ability to resist the temptation of sin, ask for forgiveness, and strength for repentance.
Girl, God’s salvation looks good on you.
I can relate so much to the analogy of mirrors…and I haven’t considered the fact that I am carrying something that has already been replaced. I’ve been given the grace of a new reflection in Christ but am holding on to what is so much less. I want to let go of the past, forgive, and embrace His goodness with a trusting heart. I want to toss the old mirror aside to see who I truly am and was created to be.
I try to make people like me by making them happy. It’s a vicious cycle that causes me to feel like a failure because I cannot make everyone happy 100% of the time. It’s a sinful way to function because it’s about me being liked for what I do, not for whose I am. As I have become aware of this I want to set it down. It’s a daily battle to lay it down and look to Jesus to be my center. He gives me gifts to share, not so I look good, but that He May be glorified and move in others.
I allow my imperfections to blind me to the perfect beauty of GOD’s grace. True I have accepted salvation that comes through JESUS CHRIST for my eternity now I need to turn my gaze away from the world’s mirror and train my eye to look deeply into the mirror that reflects JESUS in me.Turn away from the ugly imperfections and go "scripture gazing" in order to see the wonder of GOD in me.
Because I have not been faithful to spending time in prayer and in the Word, I am seeing everything through the lens of the world, instead of the lens of Christ. I have allowed the world to influence my behavior, my thinking, my demeanor…everything. I am so thankful that the Lord heard my cries for help.
I am fallible and imperfect. When I was young I believed I was perfect/or that I was to "be" perfect. Due to this it has taken me a long time to understand I am not perfect. While I strive to live a life of total obedience, I do fail. It’s a day by day journey. I still see myself in the broken mirror image and not in the new mirror of Christ.
Probably by letting the past haunt me still, by allowing memories, not pleasant ones to creep in, and fear that hurt might return. I also know though that I have been forgiven of the past, I have asked others to forgive me. I also need to constantly remind myself that old things have fallen away and I am a child of God, saved. Just because I make a mistake, does not mean I should allow the past to flood back on and overtake my joy in Christ.
Our sinful self continues to look at the old mirror because we feel unworthy of looking into the mirror of salvation.
I am a sinner, I sin everyday. I carry around my old mirror because I am afraid of letting go. I am afraid of submitting my full self to God no matter how much Love and Passion I have for Him. I am afraid because it is all unseen and that BIG new factor even though I know it will be beautiful, is still scary.
I am still around people who knew me when I wasn’t a Christian. I get reminded on a constant basis of who I used to be and it feels strange. On the outside I may look the same, but on the inside I am completely different. I guess I feel like a hypocrite or something. Like I am not worthy of the new mirror.
Fear of truly letting go and trusting God and the sin of wanting to maintain control (thinking it brings me safety of some sort)… my old hurts make the habits (sin) hard to give up. I need to trust that God is with me each day, shaping and moving me and my life, with no surprises to Him… My path is where he leads me.