Living without inner reflection usually leads to living in rebellion to the ways of the Lord.
In the animated Disney Movie “Snow White and the Seven Dwarves” the evil witch says, “Mirror Mirror on the wall, who is the fairest one of all?” The mirror responds, “Snow White is a thousand times fairer than you.” When you look into a mirror it will reflect your image. When you talk to a mirror it will respond with the facts it has seen.
The witch wanted the facts to reflect her image. She was mistaken. A mirror can only reflect what it sees or what it has seen. A mirror will see you just as you are not as you want to be. If you want to be seen as a fair person, you must live like a fair person. But many of us today are like the witch here. We want to be seen in favorable terms no matter how we live.
Without the ability to reflect on ourselves, we will oppose anything that is contrary to how we want to be seen. What is right is what is right. What is good is what is good. What is fair is what is fair. When you live in opposition to or in rebellion against these things, you come to live by your own standards and rules, and you want others to live by your views also.
Eventually you lose the capacity to see, to understand or even to comprehend what is right from what you have made to be right for you. Ezekiel 12:2 says this. “Son of man, you dwell in the midst of a rebellious house, which has eyes to see but does not see, and ears to hear but does not hear; for they are a rebellious house.” The Lord was not happy with the people because they did not see themselves as He saw them.
When we ignore the truths and facts and try to live with our own truths, we become rebellious against what is true so that we can have what we want. People who live in a rebellious state see but they do not understand, and they hear but they cannot comprehend.
We can see these people today. Their lives are dulled against receiving the truths of life. They do not even see their rebellion as rebellion because what they see and feel seems so right to them. When they look into the mirror, they see how great they are and how inferior and rebellious others are.
Have you considered that we may be living in a rebellious house today? When we no longer want to listen to and hear and understand what God says, He will give us over to our own thinking. He refers to this as having a depraved mind (Romans 1:28). A depraved mind is one that is given over to morale corruption. It loses its ability to discern what is right from what it desires.
A depraved mind is not a threat to God’s Word, but it is a threat to us as people. Consider that today it seems that more of us no longer know what a boy or a girl is. The mirrors we use today tell us what we want to hear and see. When we are in a rebellious state we look into the mirror and it says to us, you are the fairest of them all. Even the mirror is depraved – it is absent the ability to see as God has ordained things to be seen.
When we live in a rebellious state for long periods of time, we lose the ability to be introspective or to reflect on ourselves. We cannot look at ourselves and even ask “is it me?” We cannot ask if we may be wrong. We cannot ask if we may be on the opposite side of what is right. When we are in a rebellious state, we have nothing that comes back to us saying this is who you truly are.
God gives us free will but that doesn’t mean we are right and true in all the things we freely choose to believe and to do. When we are in a rebellious state we see with the eyes of our wants; we hear with the ears of what we want to hear; and we empathize with the things that don’t go the way we believe they should. We live in our flesh and not in our spirits.
Sadly, we cannot know God’s Word when we are in a rebellious state. Scripture says we lose the ability to understand and to discern the real truths around us. As long as we are in a rebellious state, the Lord will keep spiritual knowledge, insight and understanding from us. We become like the witch who couldn’t see who she was because she could not look at herself to hear herself.
You may be in a rebellious state if you find that you never ask yourself, what is going on with me? Or if you never ask yourself, is mine the right view or position? If you never find yourself saying I may be wrong, you make it hard to be better.
If you say this is what God’s Word says to me, you may be in a rebellious state. If you can say this is what God’s Word says about me, you are one of the few who can see yourself just as God sees you. When you cannot be introspective you can’t know when you are fooling yourself. You look into the mirror to see if God agrees with you. Here is the order of things. God does not agree with our positions. We must agree with His.
When you cannot be introspective, you want His Word to be subject to your views. When you try to find ways to show that your position is supported by the position God has taken, you are in rebellion. God will leave you alone to your mind when this happens. God does not support our positions; we must be supportive of His.
God has a position on same sex marriage, and He has a position on your view of same sex marriage. Think about that. When we are in a depraved state of mind, we spend more time trying to get God to accept our views because we are darkened to what are His views.
It takes insights to discover the deep spiritual things God has reserved for us. A spiritual issue can never be solved with a carnal response. And a carnal problem usually demands a spiritual solution. Rebellion is to reject the spiritual truths needed in our carnal lives.
Stop and consider what you are thinking; think about your thinking. Ask yourself what am I doing? Ask yourself if you are living in rebellion to God? I’m not talking about a single thing, but as a total way of living.
If you do this, the Lord may help you see if you are in a rebellious state. When He frees you from that state, you will be able to live with the reflections we all have when the Word of God says to us “this is what I find in you.” Living without reflection is rebellion against what God has ordained for your life.
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