Rabbi Schneider - What Do You See in the Mirror?
Beloved, the Word of God is like a mirror. In other words, we look in the mirror and the mirror shows us who we are. What the Bible wants to do for us is to hold up a mirror to ourselves so that we can discern where we are at in our life and make any necessary corrections. In other words, God wants us to see ourselves in the Light of the mirror of His Word. And what the Scripture tells us in 2 Timothy chapter 1 verse 7 is this, "God has not given us a spirit of fear" or timidity "but of love, and power, and discipline".
So how is this a mirror? It's a mirror in the sense that if we are living in timidity, if we're living in this inferiority, this kind of spirit of shame, we don't have to wonder if it's okay or not. Some people will say, "well this is just the way that I am". But that's not good enough, it's not good enough to say, "that's just the way that I am". Because God loves us too much to leave us where we are. God gave us His Word to call us up to where He wants us to be.
So for example, when the Scripture says God has not given us a spirit of fear or timidity, but of love, and power, and discipline, that means I can't just say, "Ya know what? I'm shy. I'm bashful. I'm timid. This is just the way that I am". Beloved, that's not good enough. We need to cast that up because God has not given us a spirit of timidity but of love and power and discipline. So what that means is if I'm naturally a timid person, I need to say, "Ya know what? I need to break the spirit of timidity off me because I'm a new creation in Christ Jesus. Old things are passing away. All things have become new".
We don't define ourselves by who we are in the natural. We may have been born one way, but Beloved, that's just the beginning of the story. We've been born again. We're being changed, we're going from grace to grace, we're looking into the face of Jesus and as we look into the face of Jesus, we're being changed and so God says, "You've not been given a spirit of timidity, but of love, and power, and discipline".
Don't let yourself make excuses for yourself that this is just the way you are, God's called you up to something bigger. God's called you to something better. So get into agreement with His Word and let's strive to enter in through the narrow gate because we can and we will by His grace and as we do, we'll be transformed into His likeness and we will shine like the stars as a result forever and ever.