Mirrors: Cloudy or Clear?

Hey guys! I felt the need to do something other than music homework, so here's a short one... something that I've been thinking about today.

I wiped my mirror with bleach a few days ago to get rid of some fruit flies, rendering the mirror slightly cloudy, and I finally got around to properly cleaning it this evening.   It struck me as I looked at my face in the newly cleaned mirror that several little flaws were apparent that hadn't been visible when the glass was a bit clouded.  

It made me think...In James 1, a comparison is made between a man looking into a mirror and forgetting what he looks like, and a man who hears the word but doesn't obey it/take it to heart.   So if the Word is supposed to be a 'mirror' for us, then what happens if can't see it properly?  I think that it's fairly common for a Christian to let things take his mind off of the 'mirror' of the word...whether that be his own success that is taking his mind off God, or perhaps he just gets a little lazy after he looks at the world, and he thinks 'Hey, I'm doing pretty darn good compared to some other people in the world, I think I'll take it easy for a while.'    This second example is the one I want to warn against.

Make no mistake brothers and sisters, the world is NOT your mirror.  If you are looking at the world and letting it define you, you are heading for destruction.  The world wants to make you comfortable, the world wants you to look at yourself and say 'Hey, I'm a good person, yeah..I'm cool!'   The world is trying to cloud up your mirror, trying not to let you see yourself for who you are.

The true mirror of mankind is Jesus Christ.  When Christ looks at us, he should see His own character mirrored back to him.  I know that in this life it is impossible to fully live up to what you see in Christ, but that is what we should be striving for.   To truly strive for that, you have to know Christ, you have to understand who He was, who He is, and what He did.   If you stop trying to understand Christ, your mirror gets cloudy. You can't see as well. You don't see Christ's perfection properly, and therefore you don't see your own faults properly.  

So, what am I saying then?  Wash your mirror! Keep it clean! The Word is to us what Windex is to mirrors! Read the Word, read books about the Word, understand Christ, get to know Christ, and always always always look up!  Don't look at yourself compared to those around you, look at yourself compared to your savior. 

How clean is your mirror?