The Mirror

“No man has a chance to enjoy permanent success until he begins to look in a mirror for the real cause of all his mistakes.”
– Napoleon Hill.

In the 90’s I used to work industrial construction. I mainly was an equipment operator, backhoes, cranes, etc. I remember a group of us taking a lunch break in a tool shop at a plant and a guy said, “Did you hear about the guy selling brains?” “No,” we replied. He begins telling us there was a salesman at the plant office selling brains. We looked at each other with a grin of expectation as he continued. The salesman had an appointment with the leadership of the plant and gave his “brain” presentation. It boiled down to brains at all different prices. He said, “I have laborer brains for $2 a pound, pipefitter brains for $5 a pound, and engineer brains for $20 a pound.” The President of the company asked is that all he had? He replied, “Well…, I do have corporate executive brains, but… they’re $2000 a pound!” The shock was evident, “$2000???!! Why so much??” The salesman replied, “Do you have any idea how many corporate executives you have to kill to get a pound of brains?” We all roared with laughter. I have often told that joke and adjust it to the audience. The humor is always well received. I share that with you now, not talking about construction workers but Americans in general. It is odd the higher up the ladder we go it seems the more we have to place our brain in stasis.
I just got off the phone with our local light, fuel, & power company. We had a renter move out on the 31st of October and we showed up the next day and to our surprise the power was off. My wife called them because we have a landlord agreement with them. This means if a renter moves out they won’t turn off the utilities they will just begin to charge us. They explained that our agreement does not go into effect unless it is winter, which begins (in their minds) on November 1st. The renter moved out the day before and they run over and shut off power, hmmm? Makes sense to anyone who has had their brain placed “on hold” for most of their life, right? Remember, I said, “I just got off the phone with the power company.” Well that is because after 3 online attempts and 2 phone calls over the course of five days in an effort to turn power back on, they finally decided that my wife doesn’t have that power. As I sat there with the phone talking to a very nice man named Greg. He was very polite. He had a pleasant charm and mastery of our language and he took 15 minutes to do what a 6-year-old knew should have been done a week earlier. In fact the 6-year-old would not have shut the power off in the first place.
The reason I share the joke and power company testimony is because we ALL are in desperate need of assessing ourselves in light of common sense, in light of common grace, in light of truth.

In fact, The only way things can improve is to see the need to change for the better.

The problem that feels like a millstone on the individual’s neck is they don’t see how they can help, it’s the company, system, or rules they can’t change that have bound them to live with it. If you interviewed the power company employee, Greg, who helped me on the phone. I know he would tell you how none of what happened made sense, but then he would also tell you how they were following the systems, processes, flow charts that they were hired to do. Greg would be describing a dilemma that we all know too well. It makes an individual feel powerless to affect the right change. This affects all of society but for my purpose I am concerned and will focus on the body of Christ and you, the individual believer.

Let me share with you the steps needed to deal with that dilemma and be a light in a dark place. The first step is to look in the mirror to see an accurate reflection ourselves. An accurate reflection is only found by gazing into the mirror of truth. The mirror is His Word.

Since 2001 I have taught and performed failure investigations mainly in corporate America. These are catastrophic events like flares overfilling causing a fire, injuries, and sometimes even loss of life. Terrible things. If anyone could have connected the dots and seen the accident coming then it certainly would have been avoided. The issue is people can’t see the forest for the trees. Hindsight is 20/20. Investigating after something has happened by gathering all forms of evidence and recreating the event is an incredible experience – in fact it is life changing. People begin to see an accurate reflection of themselves and their company in the mirror of truth. That is what evidence is – it is truth manifested in our lives. In this case it is a fire, flow rates, decisions to open valves or close them and when. It goes on and on, but evidence always leads us to understand what happened. I love doing that because I help people learn from things that go wrong. In order to learn from things that go wrong I HELP THEM CHANGE THE WAY THEY THINK.

It’s not readily apparent to everyone that the reason things go wrong is because they played a part in it. Most people tend to think it’s bad luck, or worse yet it is someone else’s fault – BLAME. Let me share an example closer to home. We have some friends at church that always seem to be fighting to make ends meet. They are on the verge of being impoverished and think they just need more money, but in reality they need to change the way they think. They are impoverished because of wrong thinking, wrong sowing, and wrong believing. They are struggling due to the choices they have made in the past that have led to where they are now. One example would be buying a giant t.v., instead of setting aside some money for an emergency. The problem is they didn’t connect the dots that decision and whole bunch just like them are the cause of their lack.

But in order to minister to what they need we must first give someone starving a sandwich BEFORE you have the opportunity to minister to what they truly need. We will only temporarily help them if we don’t give them what they need – a different mindset.

How does this apply to you and our church, and our country? Here’s the bombshell; We need to change the way we think. God told me this and then showed me why, what, and how needed to change.

Romans 12:2 instructs us to be transformed by the renewing of your mind.

Rob’s translation says you need to change the way you think!

Our friends think they need more money but like many lottery winners you see – more money just postpones being broke. It doesn’t change anything. It’s like a band-aid, not a cure. In fact, they end up worse off. God wants the best for you. The end of Romans 12:2 says,

God’s will is good, pleasing and perfect

In order for God to give you your heart’s desire you have to change the way you think. In other words, if you continue to think the way you have been thinking, then you are hindering Him from giving you what you’ve asked for. Wrong thinking is actually described as a stronghold in the bible (2 Cor 10:4-5). That is what we are to tear down.

In Matthew 16 Jesus said the he will build the church, and the gates of Hades will not overcome it. That is good news. I have shared a little humor to highlight a battle we are part of. The enemy is raging at every level of society to get people in a place where they feel helpless to effect positive change.

The world we live in and the world we see are not the same thing. The world we see is a reflection of a world we do not see, a spirit world. The two together make up the world we live in. This world is blind to the spirit of darkness wreaking havoc. The church is immersed in lethargy and suffers from not seeing much better into the spiritual realm than the blind world they live in.

Imagine for a moment you have the power of invisibility. Think of the things you could do, the places you could go, and no one could stop you. You could fly free forever. You could tell people things that could help them or terrify them. The thoughts are endless. The power or influence is almost unthinkable. Well, the devil is invisible and he is strangling the body of Christ with our own belt. Using a twisted belt of truth he misuses scripture in an attempt to bring confusion and doubt. Ultimately trying to have us credit God with evil that is the devil’s. His goal is to disconnect the body from the head because the body of Christ is the only threat on this planet to stopping his free run to steal, kill, and destroy.

The current assessment of the Christian church in America today:

Toothless, a church without power.

Disunity. Pride that our church is better than the one down the street.

Evangelism has been replaced with the gift of cannibalism. Devouring ourselves and thinking we are better off.

We have turned communion into a sixty-second ceremony begging God to forgive us and help us do better – it has turned into a ceremony of works. Next it will just be a purple pill.

We invite people to church to make ourselves happy.

We devour Pastors like kids eat chicken nuggets. Thinking we need to hear something fresh and this Pastor is same old stuff.

We celebrate numbers of people instead of the transformed lives of disciples.

Our Pastor’s feel an overwhelming pressure for finances. This is due to believer’s not believing the scriptures that clearly tell us to be givers. This derails a Pastor more often than all the other attacks combined. The Barna Group said,

The average person, when feeling pinched for time or money, will focus too much on the thing they’re missing and too little on the future. Their strategy for getting back on their feet and living past the crisis is faulty or missing. They borrow from the future, both by literally borrowing money on unfavorable terms and by thinking they can delay the undelayable (for example, spending time with their children).

We live in the world and take a couple of hours Sunday to honor God, thinking a bath (washed with the water of the word) once a week is working.

Confused why over 80%* of millennials want nothing to do with today’s Church? Why kids are lost, hurt, and dying? Why God doesn’t do something?

My brothers and sisters, this is ALL EVIDENCE of the work of our enemy!

I know I just pointed out all the things we like to overlook. Hoping we ignore problems and they will solve themselves is a very poor strategy that does not work. Now is the time for believers to assess their nation, city, church, and themselves through the lens of the God’s word. We must accurately assess gaps between what we are and what we should be based on His truth. Then we must act according to that truth. Deception comes thinking merely listening to the truth helps, it doesn’t. Doing it helps.