It’s Not the Mirror

2 Chronicles 16:10
“Then Asa was wroth with the seer, and put him in a prison house; for he was in a rage with him because of this thing. And Asa oppressed some of the people the same time.”

Asa had a problem in that he didn’t like what the seer said about him to his face. He was angry with the seer because he told him that he was wrong in relying on the king of Syria instead of on God.

Because he didn’t like what the seer said to him, he put the seer in prison. The problem with this is that putting the seer in prison didn’t change the problem. The problem with Asa was that he did wrong, and he needed to get right with the LORD.

Asa’s action is like a person looking in a mirror and not liking what the mirror revealed, so they take the mirror and throw it away thinking that the mirror is the problem. The mirror is not the problem because the mirror is simply a reflection of the person standing in front of it. Proverbs 27:19 reminds us, “As in water face answereth to face, so the heart of man to man.” You can get rid of the mirror, but your heart still tells you that the mirror is right. Christian, the revelation of your wrong by an authority is not your problem. The problem is that you need to deal with what you have done.

Avoiding the mirror in your life doesn’t change who you really are. A person can choose to ignore the mirror, but it still doesn’t change who they are and what they are doing. You can avoid the preacher who preaches against your sin, but that is not going to change your problem. You can avoid the authority who pointed your sin out, but avoiding them is not going to change that you are doing wrong. Avoiding your problems simply makes the problems worse. The best action is to face them head on and change what you are doing.

Moreover, changing mirrors won’t change the reflection. I have watched many Christians change churches because they don’t like what the preacher preaches, but that doesn’t change that you are still doing wrong. You can change church membership every month, but the mirror of God’s Word still reflects what you are doing wrong. You can use moving out of town as your excuse to leave the mirror, but that still doesn’t change the problems that you face. You can run from your problems for the rest of your life, but you will always find out that your problems run faster than you do, and they tend to always catch up.

Christian, the mirror is not the fault of who you are; the mirror is simply a reflection of the real you. You will never change the problems in your life if you continue to blame the mirror for your problems. Your problem is not the preacher, the authority, your spouse, your parents, or anyone else you are blaming; the problem is you. The reflection in the mirror will stay the same or get worse as long as you blame the mirror for the reflection.

The answer to changing the reflection is to change the person who the mirror is reflecting. I’m am not saying that you have to like what the mirror reflects, but I am saying that you need to change what the mirror is revealing if you want it to stop reflecting what you don’t like. My question for you is this, what are you going to do with the reflection you see in your mirror? You can avoid it or change the mirror, but your problem will stay the same. The answer is to change the reflection by repenting of what you are doing and allow the Word of God to cleanse your life.