The man walked the woman to the door, knowing it had to end that day.  Confused about his decision to cancel the false relationship, she cried out, "But my husband will never find out, he's always gone out of town." He shook his head slowly as he hinted towards the door, it was over. The void and sadness was evident in her eyes as she left his apartment for the last time.  He didn't care about her or anyone else. He just wanted the pain, the burden of shame and hatred to exit his life.  It was as if he needed a physician to come in and operate on his insides to remove  the dark burden from within.  Yes, surgery would cure him, but what kind, who would do it? He was a Volkswagen, crushed by the weight of a "wide load"  tractor-trailer that had just tipped over.  A journey to the mirror in the bathroom seemed to take forever, but he was determined to do what he had planned years before.  With the dim light of only a partial sunset breaking through the darkness, he finally had enough courage to look at "the thing" in the mirror.  A shaven face, close-cropped hair and cologne fooled most, but not the person on the inside.  He now detested the monster that he saw, that he had grown to love in the last 27 years.

The bitterness, the anger was now too much to bear.  All of a sudden, a violent struggle broke out; the inner man was ripping and pulling at the clothing of the man that he saw in the mirror.  He hated everything this physical brute stood for: pride, hatred, anger, lies, unforgiveness, bitterness, fornication, adultery, evil speech and death.  All of the years of going to church, being a fake Christian were too much to bear. Lip service no longer meant anything and he knew it wouldn't in eternity.  He knew it would be a terrible thing to fall into the hands of a living God.  He was tired of going to church to feel good without actually being good.  The soulish man seemed to be taking control of the fight as he grabbed the head of the physical man, bending and pulling it.  He continued punching the chest of the man in the mirror, but 'ole muscles' refused to give up the throne of their heart to the invisible traitor without a dogfight.  After minutes more of struggle, the man looked up in the mirror, both beings looking on anxiously. Suddenly, the following words appeared in the man's heart:  "If you were to die today, would you go to Heaven or Hell?" The 'ole muscles' rose up quickly to say, "C'mon, I go to church, that's got to be good enough."  The soul spoke out, "But what else, there's got to be more," it said desperately.  The eternal struggle continued again for a few moments.  The question repeated itself again from some unknown source.  Again, the physical man kept defending himself, saying he was 'pretty good, certainly not as bad as most of his friends, and again that he still went to church'(although not in the previous two months due to tremendous shame).  The soul of the man spoke out again, but this time it said, "You need a change–you need to go back to Christ.  You need to repent and forsake your sinful lifestyle.  You need to dust off your bible that is 17 years old, but practically new."  The tussle continued for a brief period more and then there was silence.  Had the fleshy man been stopped?

This time, when the invisible man within stared at the outward one in the mirror and noticed the brute had been beating down off the throne of their heart.  Looking into those eyes, he could tell that someone wonderful, someone caring and kind had been ushered to his rightful spot on the throne of their heart-- the person sitting, obviously a Savior, a King.  Only when 'ole muscles' had got to his lowest in sin, when he had gotten "sick and tired of being sick and tired", was there real change. The soulish man within actually saw himself on the outside, for the first time in 27 years–he was alive and changed!  As he looked in the mirror, he knew that things would never go back to the way they use to be.  Indeed, there had been a surgery performed after all–heart surgery, by the Ultimate Physician.   The new man knew that one of the first things he would do would be get rid of evil in his life, especially sinful music and sinful relationships that displeased the King, the bible becoming his focal point.  J.D. Stegall was a changed man and it felt good for him to know he was leaving the Undercover Christian business to become a genuine man of God who would no longer bring shame to the Kingdom and its Christ.