Breaking the Mold or Shattering the Mirror

I remember when I was just a little kid I had such a fun experience making mud cakes! I would grab one of my grandma's old pots (that she never uses!) and stuff it with wet mud (not too runny, but wet enough). Then, I would carefully turn the pot upside down and dump out the mud, now shaped in a circular form as the pot. I would then proceed to "decorate" the muddy mold with grass and other colorful flowers to make my beautiful "cake". Oh wow! I had so much fun!

I did run into a problem though. I noticed that if the mud dried up just a little, the mold would not come out all the way or it would come out halfway, resulting in a pile of mess inside and outside of the pot. Therefore, the mold had to be taken out of the pot before it had a chance to dry even a little and stick to the pot. These were my days filled with experimenting and exploring as a young child.

It is interesting to find, that the bible also talks about "molds" in it's pages. In Romans chapter 12 v. 2, Paul says, "And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God."

Webster's 1828 dictionary defines conform as "To make like, in external appearance; to reduce to a like shape, or form, with something else..."

Transform is defined as "To change the form of; to change the shape or appearance; to metamorphose; as a caterpillar transformed into a butterfly."

I find that in my personal walk with God, I tend to at times stray away from Him and find myself conforming into the "mold" of this world. When I find myself in love with the world's glitz and glam, whether it would be the world's catchy fashions, risque movies, infatuation in self-image, idolization of wealth, etc I find myself being outlined and molded more and more into an image of the world. It reaches the point where the line between the world and me as a Christian is worn off into a mere gray speck in the dust. The plans of the devil is to offer these things on a fake gold platter, in high hopes that we will soon be in a messy pile of mud decorated with lifeless grass and dead flowers. But it is not to say that we weren't warned!

It is clear that the Bible teaches us to be set apart from the world, but what is more special, is that the Bible is the resource that offers us the ability to examine ourselves to determine where we are spiritually. Is it one foot in the world's door, and one foot into the church treshold?

Doug Phillips, the president of Vision Forum Ministries(http://www.visionforumministries.org/) speaks often of the Desert Island Challenge in which he gives a scenario that if we were on a desert island with only the Bible to guide us, how would our views be shaped? What will we be like?

Obviously being on a lonely desert island, with nothing to distract us, or lead us to wander, we will look to the Bible as our reference and guidebook. Therefore, we will be built up and shaped into God's mold according to His word.

In 2 Corinthians 13:5 Paul writes "Examine yourselves, whether ye be in the faith...". In James chapter 1, v. 22-25 we are told to not only hear what the Word tells us but also be doers of the Word. These verses reiterate the point that the Bible is our mirror. This mirror shows us the "mold" we are in and it is up to us to break the worldly mold, or to shatter the mirror of God's Word in our defiance...the choice is after you dear reader.