The Man In The Mirror

Or do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and you are not your own?  For you were bought at a price; therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which are Gods.
1 Corinthians 6: 19-20 NKJV

Who is it that you see when you look in the mirror?  That person who we see looking back at us may ultimately define how we view ourselves in general.  There are countless people out there who, when they see their own reflection, see a monster staring back at them.  For when they gaze into that mirror, all they see is a recluse, a stranger to God or a sinner deserving of the worst of punishments!  I've been in those shoes more than once.  For years, I had been taught that I was nothing but a sinner saved by grace.  When I looked inn the mirror, the man I saw looking back at me was someone who could never deserve forgiveness.  No, I'd gone too far and made far too many mistakes for God to reconcile me.  This manifested in the very way in which I viewed myself as a person.  I was useless, unforgiven and a evil person.  This was the lie which I lived!

"I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me."
Galations 2:20 NKJV

One of the most difficult scriptures I've ever had to come to grips with lies in Galations 2:20.  It is here that the apostle Paul relates a truth to his readers that may have been as revolutionary in his own time as it is today.  As Paul tells it, he had been crucified with Christ already!  What?  For as Paul wrote this piece of scripture, he was very much alive!  How could this former persecutor of Gods church have been crucified with Jesus?  See, many people in Pauls day still remembered that scene on calvarys hill when Jesus gave himself as a sacrafice for all.  They also recalled, that Saul wasn't on one of those crosses that day.  It seems that not too many people got the point.  However, the point that Paul was driving home was that Jesus died not only for the redemption of the sins of all mankind, but to eradicate the OLD Paul who's sins had multiplied over time.  Of course, when the former Paul was done away with, there still remained the void of his body to fill, which Christ accomplished as well by his death.  Shouldering the sins of all mankind, Jesus single handedly removed that sin nature that convicts us!  In its place now dwells the spirit of our risen Lord Jesus!  So it is, that as we now look at that man in the mirror, the one we see gazing back at us is the one who now inhabits our earthly bodies, our risen Lord Jesus.

~Scott~