The simple things are most precious

:: Transformed by Insight...Oswald Chambers 2 Corinthians 3:18

Simplicity, simplicity, simplicity! I say, let your
affairs be as two or three, and not a hundred or a
thousand. Simplify, simplify.
--Henry David Thoreau

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Transformed by Insight...Oswald Chambers

The outstanding characteristic of a Christian is this unveiled frankness before God so that the life becomes a mirror for other lives.  By being filled with the Spirit we are transformed, and by beholding we become mirrors.  You always know when a man has been beholding the glory of the Lord; you feel in your inner spirit that he is the mirror of the Lord's own character.  Beware of anything which would sully that mirror in you, it is nearly always a good thing, the good that is not the best.

The golden rule for your life and mine is this concentrated keeping of the life open towards God.  Let everything else--work, clothes, food, everything on earth--go by the board, saving that one thing.  The rush of other things always tends to obscure this concentration on God.  We have to maintain ourselves in the place of beholding keeping the life absolutely spiritual all through.  Let other things come and go as they may, let other people criticize as they will, but never allow anything to obscure the life that is hid with Christ in God.  Never be hurried out of the relationship of abiding in Him.  It is the one thing that is apt to fluctuate but ought not to.  The severest discipline of a Christian's life is to learn how to keep "beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord."  We are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as by the Spirit of the Lord.

What an awe-inspiring thought...that we are being transformed into the same image,  His image, from glory to glory.   As you continue to read, beyond the given scripture reference of 2 Cor. 3:18, we come to chapter 4 and it begins with "Therefore."  I automatically think, when the chapter begins with "therefore", what is it there for?  (vs4:2) So when we have this ministry of being a mirror of Christ to others, and we have received mercy (the mercy to be so and to do so) we do not lose heart.  But we have renounced the hidden things of shame, not walking in craftiness nor handling the word of God deceitfully, but by manifestation of the truth commending ourselves to every man's conscience in the sight of God.  It is by renouncing the hidden things of shame, by not walking in craftiness nor handling the word of God deceitfully that we are able to maintain ourselves in the place of beholding.  We are then able to keep our heart and life fully open to God.  There is no shame or guilt standing between us and God.   "Never allow anything to obscure the life that is hid with Christ in God.  Never be hurried out of the relationship of abiding in Him.  It is the one thing that is apt to fluctuate but ought not to," Chambers encourages us.  I can see the importance of his statement as to maintaining our place of beholding.  And these are simple things really.  Not for the faint of heart, the lazy, but not complicated tasks either. 

May I receive the grace of God to be a mirror of Christ to my fellow man.  Sometimes my life is the only Christ others will see.  Think about that.  Your life mirroring Jesus just might be the deciding factor in the life of another who is wavering.  Someone who is searching for this Christ we call Lord will watch closely those who claim His name.  May our mirror always be clear.

Living simply and for Him,

Sherri