Friday, October 11, 2013

Image Management

If I asked you, “What image do people have of you… or more importantly, what image do you want people to have of you?” how would you answer? Today personal image often centers around our own mental images of success, power, youthfulness and accomplishment.

Psychologist Mary Pipher says, “Girls become ‘female impersonators’ who fit their whole selves into small, crowded spaces. Girls stop thinking, Who am I? What do I want, and start thinking, What must I do to please others? American culture has always smacked girls on the head in early adolescence.”

For decades my main concern was my own image management. Scripture says the person who lives for pleasure is dead even while she lives (1 Tim. 5:6). My soul was dead. There was nothing to me. If you were to take off my mask, there would be no face. A person without a face is indifferent. I didn’t care about others. I used people. It was all about me—me working tirelessly on my image.

Jesus did not come into the world to condemn it (John 3:17). He didn’t want people to feel bad about themselves. He wanted people to feel loved by God. Jesus wanted people to find freedom from shame and self-condemnation, not get stuck in it.

Jesus said, “Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also” (Matthew 6:21). Let that that earthly, cultural image go and follow me. My desire is for you to join me, but I will not force you. If we’re honest many of us are afraid of the what will happen if we obey Jesus’s words: “If any of you wants to be my follower, you must put aside your own pleasures and shoulder your cross, and follow me closely” (Mark 8:34, TLB).

I think too often this is one of those biblical truths which have been misapplied. Taken out of context it results in a narrow and faulty doctrine that basically says, “If you really want to follow Christ you must give up your comfortable life to suffer and be miserable. The more you suffer, the more God will love you.”

Jesus meant we must accept the death of our own self-directed life. As Pastor Lou Giglio says in his book I Am Not But I Know I Am, “It is nothing more than the doorway to a life filled with the matchless wonder of all that God is.” Jesus is our model. He willingly left glorious heaven for dysfunctional earth in order to be in God’s redemptive story. As a man, he was willing to fully give of himself so that the ultimate glory would be given to his Father. He knew there was greater glory to come. All Jesus did was give of himself so others, including you and me, could be privy to a great relationship with God—now and forever.

The Bible define the Christian disciple as one who models Jesus Christ’s lifestyle; one who will “deny himself and take up his cross” and follow Christ (Mark 8:34). Jesus too knew that embracing smallness and crucifying the flesh is something we have to do every moment of every single day. In the process we must be willing to face whatever physical, emotional, or social harassments ensue—being ridiculed for our beliefs and losing certain friends (they were probably not real friends to begin with), turning off our Internet connections for a couple of hours and serving the homeless, or giving up things that have no eternal value.

This is what exchanging our old image and selfish life for a new image and selfless life in Christ looks like. Far too many Christians are living a life they weren’t meant to live. They assume that if they do something they don’t like or feel comfortable with, it is what God wants. They don’t understand that God desires for them to live an abundant life. Someone once said, “Life isn’t about finding yourself; it’s about discovering who God created you to be.” As we discover our God-given purpose and live in accordance with that, joy is imminent.

It is hard to deny ourselves what we truly desire with temptation banging at our door each day, maybe every minute. With the help of the Holy Spirit we can learn to let go of insatiable desires. To do this we must grow in the spiritual virtue of attachment—attachment to God alone. As we receive nourishment from him then our minds and heart begin to change, and we begin dying to self.

Brennan Manning prayed, “Dear Jesus, gift us to stop grandstanding and trying to get attention, to do the truth quietly without display, to let the dishonesties in our lives fade away, to accept our limitations, to cling to the gospel of grace, and to delight in your love. Amen.”

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