What do you see when you look in the mirror?

Every Wednesday morning I look so forward to Bible study with a precious group of women. We call it "Power Hour". I have been preparing my heart for power hour all day. This question has been ringing in my heart since I woke up this morning ... "What do you see when you look in the mirror?"  

How do you see yourself? Do you embrace and celebrate what you see? If not, why not? I too am asking myself these questions, because I am realising how important it is to see the true picture of who I really am. 

Do you look in the mirror and see only the scars of pain, abuse, rejection, and shame that you have endured; or do you maybe see the things that other people have told you that they see in you. Maybe when you look you only seem to see the flaws of all the things that you still want to change; or perhaps when you look you see how far you have come and truly celebrate and embrace that you are beautiful in you uniqueness. This is God's heart for us ... to celebrate and accept ourselves the way that He sees us. Not only does He call us "beloved" ... but He celebrates us! Remember when He made mankind, He stood back and looked at His handiwork and declared it to be "very good"! (See Genesis 1:31). As He made us, it says that He blessed us with every blessing we would ever need. His heart is for us to see that in His eyes ... we are worthy of His love and every good thing that He wants us to embrace.

In Matthew 17:23 Jesus prays to the Father in the garden of Gethsemane that we would know that the Father “has loved us even as You have loved Me.”.  This is truth from the mouth of Jesus, the Truth incarnate. Father God loves us with the same intensity of love that He loves Jesus. The disciple John got a revelation of this. He referred to himself as "the disciple that Jesus loved". How profoundly would it change our lives if we started to see ourselves this way too!

When our God looks at us He accepts and celebrates us completely. He doesn’t just see what we see (all the imperfections that we want to hide or run from) ... He sees everything that He has destined for us. He sees capabilities that we have not even comprehended in ourselves yet, which is why it is important to see the “true” reflection of who we truly are. 

Where does the “distorted” picture of ourself then come from? Often times we draw conclusions or place  limitations upon ourselves based on past experiences of hurt, pain, disappointment, failure, rejection, or peoples incorrect opinions or negative words spoken over us. What we have to do is take each of those words or experiences to Jesus, who is TRUTH and measure ourselves rather against what He sees in us. It’s what we do with those experiences / feelings that is either going to free us or keep us locked up in the limitations that we place upon ourselves. I am learning to look out for the ways that I might reinforce those negative thoughts and replace them with the picture of who Jesus says I am. We do this by looking into the mirror of the Word. "But be doers of the Word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves. For if anyone is a hearer of the Word and not a doer, he is like a man observing his natural face in a mirror; for he observes himself, goes away, and immediately forgets what kind of man he was. But he who looks into the perfect law of liberty and continues in it, and is not a forgetful hearer but a doer of the work, this one will be blessed in what he does." (James 1:22-25) Looking at ourselves through His Word brings the liberty to be all that He says that we are. We have to keep looking into His accurate picture of ourselves so that we don't forget and relapse into seeing ourselves the way the enemy wants us to see ourselves. When we begin to measure ourselves with the beautiful truths of how God sees us, we set ourselves free to really be all that He says we are and we release ourselves to do all the exciting things that He says that we are capable of doing. I am praying that as you look into the mirror today, you begin to see with a smile the beauty that so delights His heart! You are truly beautiful. Celebrate your uniqueness today.

      All my love, Janine xxx