VERSE: “We all, with open faces, beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image.” 2 Corinthians 3:18
OSWALD: “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.” (January 23rd)
MY THOUGHT: I love my friend, Judy. She literally shines.
There is a sweetness in her countenance and an acceptance in her love that is winsome and hard to resist. You just feel better when you are around her. Valued and wanted. Embraced as she leans forward with a gentle smile, drawing you out with questions about your life, as if she really wants to know you – because she does. I’ve been a recipient of that genuine interest, but she doesn’t save it only for friends. She greets strangers with the same kind of welcoming love.
Judy reminds me of Jesus.
While gentleness and sincerity is part of my friend’s nature, there is an accompanying depth and wisdom that can only come from spending time alone with God. I’ve had the privilege of praying often with Judy, walking hand in hand as we go to the throne. She has a sweet familiarity and comfortableness with God, like a child secure and fully acquainted with her Father’s love.
It is an intimacy that hasn’t happened overnight, and Judy would be the first to tell you there are times she struggles just as most of us do. Times when feelings are fickle and her disciplined pursuit imperfect. But in the way she lives and the way she loves, I see a woman who has spent time with Jesus. And I can’t help but notice the family resemblance.
“We have to maintain ourselves in the place of beholding,” Oswald Chambers writes, “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 it 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.”
For as we behold Him, we are changed into the likeness of Christ. A holy exchange that only happens in the hidden place as we get alone with God.