What are you reflecting?

“Love the Lord your God with all your heart

and with all your soul and with all your mind.”

Matthew 22:37

What are you reflecting?

Jesus was once asked which commandment was the greatest. His answer was simple, but all-encompassing:

“Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.” — Matthew 22:37

I’ve read that verse countless times, but lately I’ve been thinking about it through a different lens.

Called to be a Mirror

A mirror doesn’t create light. It simply reflects the light it is facing. The same is true for us. We aren’t the source of love, grace, patience, compassion, or goodness. God is. Our job is to turn toward Him so completely that His character begins to be reflected through us.

That gives new meaning to loving God with all our heart, soul, and mind:

• Our heart represents what we love and desire.

• Our soul represents who we are at our core.

• Our mind represents what we think about, believe, and allow to shape us.

When all three are pointed toward God, we become more like the One we’re looking at.

Paul writes in 2 Corinthians 3:18 (ESV):

“And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit.”

Another Mirror Analogy

But there’s another side to the mirror analogy that challenges me: A mirror can only reflect what it is facing.

What am I facing every day? What gets my attention? What shapes my thinking? What consumes my heart? Because eventually I will reflect it. Maybe that’s why Jesus immediately followed the greatest commandment with another: “Love your neighbor as yourself.”

The two aren’t separate. We turn toward God, experience His love, and then reflect that love toward the people around us. 1 John 4:19 says, “We love because He first loved us.” We don’t manufacture the light. We simply reflect what we’ve received.

Our Light Source

Maybe the Christian life can be summarized more simply than we sometimes make it:

Face God. Know God. Love God. Reflect God. The world doesn’t need us to be the light source. It needs us to be faithful mirrors of the One who is.

Matt Lawrence

MD5 Facilitator