On this site, we’re all about providing some useful tools for all of us to grow in cultivating a personal relationship with Jesus.
I had a revelation recently, and that is that the greatest tool for cultivating is oftentimes staring me right in the face.
It’s just looking in the mirror.
Okay, I’m obviously not talking about a literal mirror (though looking in one of those can lead to you needing to take some action too!), but a metaphorical one. Take a look at a few words from Scripture, found in James 1:22-25:
Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says. Anyone who listens to the word but does not do what it says is like someone who looks at his face in a mirror and, after looking at himself, goes away and immediately forgets what he looks like. But whoever looks intently into the perfect law that gives freedom, and continues in it – not forgetting what they have heard, but doing it – they will be blessed in what they do.
We’ve got the perfect mirror staring us right in the face, and it’s the Word of God.
Here at Suncrest, we’ve just completed this series called “Listen” where we talked about the power of sitting back and simply taking some time to listen to the words that God wants to speak into our lives. We practiced silence for 10 minutes a day, simply placing ourselves before God and asking the question, “God, what do you want to say to me today?” and then just listening. It’s been cool at a staff level to hear a few of the stories that people have shared about listening and what they feel that God is saying to them.
But even if that’s not so much your thing, you’ve got a document straight from God: the Bible. Page after page is filled with God’s message to us, His followers. As I engage with the Bible, I often discover a message from God straight to me about something.
But so often, I find myself cruising through life just like the people James talks about in this passage. I hear God’s word, but I don’t do anything about it. I don’t let my faith and my listening inform my actions. Nothing changes in my life. And that’s wrong. If the God of the Universe says something to me, the least that I can do is respond.
What’s worse, though, is that sometimes I take a message that God wants to speak to me, and instead of applying it to myself, I think of how it applies to all the other people in my life. I’m the perfect example of the person with the plank in my eye who is trying to help someone with the speck in theirs (see Jesus’ words on this in Matthew 7:3-5). And I know I’m not the only one who does this. In fact, I’ve seen it practiced in a lot of various situations recently. I’ve had conversations with people who are throwing their spouse under the bus for underperforming at this or that, I’ve seen “friends” complain to me about something their friend is doing that is harmful or hurtful, and all kinds of stuff like that. I’ve often been a leading and willing participant in those conversations myself.
But in those situations, I think I really like to direct attention away from myself because I know that God’s word to me will require me to change. And that makes me uncomfortable. Yet, I want to grow in my faith. And therein lies a huge contradiction.
Guys, it’s possible that the most powerful thing we can do to cultivate a greater personal relationship with Jesus is quite simply to start looking in the mirror. Instead of directing my time and attention toward thinking of what God wants other people to do and only deceiving myself, I need to start directing my spiritual attention toward me. Instead of praying, “God, so-and-so is the problem; please help them and help me deal with them,” maybe I need to start praying “God, I am the problem. Thank you for Your grace toward me and please give me the wisdom and discipline to grow as a follower of You in this area.”
I don’t think there’s a single person reading this who would say they are perfect. And I don’t think there’s a single person reading this who can’t think of an area of their life where God is asking them to grow. Instead of looking at others, let’s start looking in the mirror and dealing with ourselves.
Making that a regular habit of our lives could be the greatest cultivating tool of all.
I am certainly not immune to mismanaging money. One look at my financial profile will show you that. I’ve got some student loans, a huge car payment, and some credit card debt (that I am horribly ashamed of because it’s mostly on spur of the moment, impulse purchases).
No doubt you will be hearing a ton about this in the days and weeks ahead, but our church offers a class called “Financial Peace University,” and it’s great. Through the incredible generosity of a couple at our church (who had went through the program themselves a few years before), I was able to take FPU a couple years ago, and it was probably the most helpful thing I’ve ever done financially in my entire life. While there, I learned some really helpful skills that have helped me be so much more responsible with my money. And while I’m not totally there yet, with each passing month and payment, I’m getting one step closer to financial freedom and that is an incredibly exciting feeling.
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