The Church Of Christian Soldiers

A Church Dedicated To The Worship Of And Service To Our Lord Christ Jesus

The Face In The Mirror

by Pastor David Halford

God had a specific purpose for placing us on the earth.  Although the reason is multifaceted as God has many plans for us while we exist as flesh-bound entities, He had a more direct plan for His children.  The mainstream idea about our purpose is:

1. Worship – Praising God by joining Him in unison with each other to celebrate our commitment and love for Our Father.
2. Fellowship – To unite with other believers as a family, loving and exhorting each other to grow together in our walk with Christ.
3. Discipleship – Simply to be a Disciple of Christ.  You should walk in His footsteps daily, reflecting His Face to all you meet, that they too, might come to know Him.
4. Ministry – We all come under the class of ministers.  Everybody has God given gifts and talents with which we can use to minister to each other and everybody with whom we come into contact.  We must remember that we are to love our enemies as well as our friends.
5. Evangelism – This is the act of spreading The Gospel to each and every person we meet.  You do this through your daily life, living as Christ would and reflecting His Holy Spirit onto everyone you meet and everything you do.

 The above concepts are the common basis for Christianity and Christians.  This writing, however, expands on the issue of reflecting God’s Face to all we contact.  The idea of reflection is a multifaceted issue and should be broken down in order to correctly personify the meaning herein and bring an unmitigated definition of this article’s intent.

The common definition of the word reflection is:

1. The act of reflecting or the state of being reflected.
2. Something, such as light, radiant heat, sound or an image that is reflected.
3. Mental concentration; careful consideration or a thought or an opinion resulting from such consideration.
4. An indirect expression of censure or discredit.
5. A manifestation or result.
6. The folding of a membrane from the wall of a cavity over an organ and back to the wall and/or the folds so made.

Most of the definitions stated above are representative of the point intended, but a greater clarification will follow.

In an essence, we can be called spiritual mirrors.  If your goal in life is to do evil and cause grief and consternation in others, you are mirroring the work of Satan and the unclean spirits.  If you fall into this category, you needn’t continue reading this dissertation, unless you would like to change and ask the new nature into your life.  You see, the simplicity of it all is Jesus came as a solution to eternal damnation.  Those who think that Christianity is all about what you can’t do are missing the point.  Though cleaning up your act is a by-product of salvation, it’s not about what you can and can’t do.  It is about calling on Jesus (God Became Flesh) to be your personal Savior.  This can be done easily, but is covered in a different dissertation and will not be covered here.  You can access this information by going to this page:

If you have accepted The Christ Jesus’ offer to eternal salvation with Him, I can only assume you are living in this way.  If you are, you are reflecting the Face of God to all with whom you come into contact.  Remember, those who have not accepted The Lord have never seen His Face or heard His Voice.  This is reserved for His children who have shared in the Blood of Christ.  I know of a few lucky people (I like to call them Paulenesk Christians who, like Paul were blinded on the road to Damascus) who God came to and told them how to solve their problem with life.  I don’t know where that mystical line lies that separates those who come to Christ out of desire and those to whom The Lord tells to straighten up their act, but I believe it exists as I know some to whom this has happened and they are sound and honest people.

When we are out in public, many people can tell you are with Christ by your outward appearance.  I don’t mean because you are nice and act all squishy and stuff, I mean you have the Blood of Christ in you (you share in this when you take communion) and The Light of God shines within you.  You may not see this light (I believe demons and other unclean spirits can), but it is there and is felt by others.  This is why Jesus called us “The Children of Light (or Sons of Light (version dependent))” (Ephesians 5:8, John 12:36, 1Thessalonians 5:5).

The Lord lives in us.  We are The Temple of God (1Corinthians 3:16).  We are warned numerous times in The Bible about abusing, disfiguring and/or misusing our bodies (sexual perversions, scarifications, tattoos, drug and alcohol abuse, gluttony (oh how the list goes on)) and the reason is, we are The Temple.  The Lord lives in The Temple and this is how He interacts with the world.  We talk for Him, we take His message to others and we care for others for Him. 

It is not explained better to me than in John 8:12 where Jesus tells us he is The Light:

“Then Jesus again spoke to them, saying, “I am the Light of the world; he who follows Me will not walk in the darkness, but will have the Light of Life.””

He also commands us to let that light shine to all in Luke 11:33-36:

³³ "No one, after lighting a lamp, puts it away in a cellar nor under a basket, but on the lampstand, so that those who enter may see the light.  ³⁴ "The eye is the lamp of your body; when your eye is clear, your whole body also is full of light; but when it is bad, your body also is full of darkness.  ³⁵ "Then watch out that the light in you is not darkness.  ³⁶ "If therefore your whole body is full of light, with no dark part in it, it will be wholly illumined, as when the lamp illumines you with its rays."

Bear in mind, it also says watch that the light in you is not darkness.  We don’t want to reflect darkness to those who look to you for the light of The Lord.  I’m sure you’ve seen or read about some television preacher who gets caught running around on his wife, steals money from the church or gets chummy with a “lady of the night”, but the truth is that they just show up more than others.  We all sin, we all have bad days and we all revert back to the old nature from time to time.  As long as we are still in the flesh, we will be subject to sins of the flesh.  Truth is, if you want to find a sinner, just go to a mirror and point forward, look up and you are looking at a sinner.  Following The Lord requires first that you understand that you are a sinner.  The fact remains that you should run from your sins.  Leave those sins in your “old nature” pants pockets and throw them away.  It’s easy for me to say this on paper, but I am as much a sinner as anybody.  Truly loving The Lord means you have to give a little.  You may have to actually try to be good.  Just because Jesus takes your sins away doesn’t mean you should go digging up a bunch of sin to give to Him.

Reflect God to others in the life you live.  Smile on the bad days and when someone is ugly to you, bathe them in kindness and understanding.  When someone cuts you off in traffic, practice praying for them, asking God to guide them and bath them in His Light.  I know that no one is looking at you then, but it is a good place to practice.  The more you practice, the easier it becomes to do the right thing.  It doesn’t come natural to us to do the good things.  Contrarily, it comes natural to do the wrong things.  The more you work on being a good steward in the love Christ gives you, the better you become at it.  Eventually, every time you get an angry, lustful or otherwise ugly thought, you’ll find Jesus calling you down and imploring you to do right.  I hate to draw on an old cliché, but there is a lot of truth in “What Would Jesus Do” or “WWJC”.  In your daily life, when life throws you one of those curve balls, just think to yourself, “How would Jesus handle this situation?”

Galatians 5:19-24

¹⁹ Now the deeds of the flesh are evident, which are: immorality, impurity, sensuality, ²⁰ idolatry, sorcery, enmities, strife, jealousy, outbursts of anger, disputes, dissensions, factions, ²¹ envying, drunkenness, carousing and things like these, of which I forewarn you, just as I have forewarned you, that those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. ²² But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, ²³ gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law. ²⁴ Now those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.

This is the guideline on being and acting as a Christian.  If you follow this rule and never sway, you will reflect the true image of God and show all you are with, who He is and how He wants us to be.

This way of life will not come over night.  It takes practice and desire, it takes prayer, supplication and study of The Word and it takes care.  If you care what others think about Christians and the Way of Our Lord, you will care how He is portrayed by you.  You are the mirror through which the world can see Our God and Our Lord.  God’s reflection will light the path you are on and shine through the darkness to illuminate the goodness that is reaped through the love that Jesus gave to us through His death on The Cross.  We share in His death so the old nature dies within us, we portray His life in the way we walk in Him and reflect, in our big spiritual mirror, the Face of God.  We reflect through our lives “The Face In The Mirror”.