GOD WANTS YOU TO LIVE
AN IMAGE-ORIENTED LIFESTYLE
The Bible says you are made in the image of God. You
are a reflection of God's creative love, and his image forms the
foundation for your own self-image.
God wants you to lead an image-oriented lifestyle
fashioned after his image. That saves you the trouble of having to
create, modify, and prop up an image you manufacture for yourself. You
don't need to create elaborate fairy tales about who you are, and you
don't need to bother to sell that image to the world.
No matter how hard you work to create your own
self-image, you are destined to fail because you are making up a fairy tale
that you attempt to project to the world. It's a show, a sham, a ploy, a
game, and you know it. When you give up your quest to create your own
image, and accept the fact that you are made in the image of God, your focus
shifts from you to him. There is a family likeness because you are made in
his image.
MIRROR MIRROR ON THE
WALL - WHO IS THE FAIREST OF THEM ALL?
Once upon a time there was an evil
queen who had low self-esteem. Like many people who have a low opinion
of themselves, she overcompensated for it by becoming extremely vain.
She even had a magic mirror that told her how beautiful she was. Even
if she didn’t like herself for who she was, at least she had a magic
mirror that could prop up her faltering ego.
Every day she stood in front of the
mirror and said, “Mirror, mirror on the wall, who is the fairest of them
all?” Every day the mirror replied, “You’re the fairest in the land.
You’re the one. You are the megababe of all megababes. You look
terrific. Your facelift was worth all the money you spent on it. You
project an image that is admired and loved by all. You’re the
greatest.”
The mirror made the queen very happy.
Even if it was just a magic mirror, the queen needed as much help as she
could get, and her flagging self-esteem would rekindle itself enough to
make it through another day.
Unfortunately, one day the magic mirror
said the wrong thing, and her self-esteem crashed and burned. It wasn’t
a pretty sight. When the queen asked the mirror who was the fairest in
the land, the mirror replied, “Snow White.” The evil queen was
devastated to discover someone had displaced her from her number one
slot as the fairest in the land. The queen went berserk and immediately
started plotting against Snow White. Snow White must go so that she
could once again be the fairest in the land.
Eliminating Snow White tuned out to be
a bigger job than anticipated. In fact, it turned into the queen’s
worst nightmare. All of the diabolical drama and intrigue would have
been unnecessary if the queen had good self-esteem. If she liked
herself, she would not have needed the magic mirror to prop up her weak
self-image.
DON’T TRUST MAGIC MIRRORS
It’s easy to point our finger at the
evil queen and see what a fool she was. It’s easy, until we stand in
front of our own magic mirror and say, “Mirror, mirror on the wall, am I
ok after all?”
We look into the mirror of our own
self-esteem and quickly discover we have a lot in common with the evil
queen. We need as much help as we can get to prop up our self-image.
It sure makes us feel better when the mirror tells us how great we
look. We look at our bank account, and if it’s overflowing with ready
cash, we feel good about ourselves. We look at our investment portfolio
and retirement plan, and our future looks bright. We surely must be
doing something right. We look at the expensive address where we live
and know the rest of the world thinks we have it made on easy street.
We look at our cars and expensive toys, and satisfaction wells up
within. We may not be the fairest in the land, but we have done pretty
well for ourselves.
The problem is that the mirror on the
wall just told you everything you are not. All of your real estate,
toys, good looks, and retirement plans are part of the problem. They
are helping you hide from yourself. If you listen to the mirror on the
wall, you will never have true self-esteem.
Who you are inside is what is
important. If you like who you are, if you have good self-esteem, then
everything the mirror tells you doesn’t matter.
Magic mirrors aren’t to be trusted. If
you trust your self-esteem to a magic mirror, you will never find out
who you are and never become all that God meant for you to be.
TRUE SELF-ESTEEM COMES
FROM GOD
True self-esteem comes from God. When
you stand in front of God’s mirror, you don’t see yourself as you are.
You see yourself as God sees you, and you see how good your life can
become when you max out on his love. The reflection you see is that of
a child of God free from the mistakes and limitations of the past.
When you look into God’s mirror, you
hear these words: “You are my child in whom I am well pleased. I love
you and accept you the way you are, but I love you too much to let you
stay that way. I love you from the top of your head to the tip of your
toes, and it doesn’t get any better than that. There is no limit to how
good your life will become when your heart and mind are full of my love. It’s
time for you to max out on my love.”
YOU ARE MADE IN THE
IMAGE OF GOD
God created you in his own image, and
the fact that you were made in his image is sufficient reason to have
excellent self-esteem. When God finished creating man and surveyed the
results, He pronounced his creation good. He didn’t say the creation
was fair, or that it was more or less good with only a few exceptions.
He unequivocally, absolutely, and enthusiastically declared that his
creation was good. This applies to you and to everyone else living on
planet earth. There are no exceptions.
God’s final act of creation was putting
an eternal spirit inside our human body. God doesn’t have flesh and
bones like humans. God is a Spirit, and the only way we could be made
in his image was for God to put an eternal spirit into our body, and
that is exactly what He did. The only part of us resembling God is our
spirit. That spirit is who we are and it’s the only part of us that
matters. Our spirit is made in God’s image, and forms the core of our
self-esteem.
CONFUSION REIGNS
Our bodies resemble those of
chimpanzees, gorillas, crocodiles, and chipmunks. Our eyes tell us what
we see is what we are, and therein lies the problem. We look at our
bodies and our possessions and think they represent who we are, when
they actually represent who we are not. We are not our hair, teeth, or
toes. We are not our money or our possessions.
People who have a problem with their
self-esteem are confused about who they are. They keep score of how
well they are doing using a scorecard that is wrong. There is no way to
look on the outside and tell who you are on the inside. One reason
people lack self-esteem is because they feel who they are on the outside
is more important than who they are on the inside. The have things
backwards, and they are wrong.
If you believe that you are your image,
your possessions, your curly hair, your bald head, your clothes, or your
lifestyle, you are in big trouble. Your self-esteem will take a beating
as you experience the ups and downs of living in the twenty-first
century.
If your self-esteem rides the roller
coaster of an image-oriented lifestyle, you will have a miserable life.
When the stock market goes up, you will feel rich, and your self-esteem
will soar like a hawk. When you lose your job, your self-esteem will
crash and burn. When someone gives you a compliment, your self-esteem
will be on top of the world. If someone criticizes you, your
self-esteem will cringe and hide. Your self-esteem will always suffer
until you base it on who you are on the inside. If you base it on what
others think about you or how many toys you have accumulated, your
self-esteem will auger in.
THE SURE FOUNDATION
The fact that God created you in his
image is a sure foundation on which to base your self-esteem. But it’s
only the foundation. There are other reasons why you should love and
accept yourself as you are.
The single most powerful reason is
because God loves and accepts you as you are. If it’s good enough for
God, it should be good enough for you. God went ahead and loved you
without you doing anything to be worthy of his love.
If we had to be worthy before God gave
us his love, we would all be in trouble. But that’s the point of
creation in the first place. God did it because He wanted to do it, and
He loved us from the get go. While we may do things that are unlovely,
we need to get over it and get on with it. There’s no room for
wallowing in self-pity or groveling in misery because we aren’t
perfect. We are made in the image of God, and God doesn’t make
mistakes. God loves us as we are, and his love makes us worthy. Period.
THE SUPERSTRUCTURE OF
YOUR SELF-ESTEEM
The fact that God has invested his love
in you and has a positive plan for your life, forms the superstructure
of your self-esteem. God loves you so much that He isn’t going to let
you stay the way you are. He is going to show you how to max out on his
love and become all you can be. God is on your side. He is your
advocate, and He will use the power of his love to wash the toxic waste
from your mind and heal your damaged emotions.
God has enough power to turn your life
around and make you into an entirely new person. Your old life will
pass away, and your new life will begin when you open your heart to the
Father’s love.
If God turned his back on you and left
you totally up to your own devices, then perhaps you would have reason
to question your self-worth. If God gave up on you because your
problems were just too big, then maybe your self-esteem should
justifiably suffer. If God’s love was not the most powerful force in
the universe, then maybe you would be without hope. But none of these
things are true.
God is your Father, and He will work
with you for as long as it takes. Nothing is too hard for God’s love.
THE MOST AMAZING REASON
FOR SELF-ESTEEM
The final reason for self-esteem is
because you have the amazing privilege of calling God your Father.
Jesus said that when you are born spiritually, God becomes your Father.
To dare to call God your Father means you have a personal relationship
with the One who created, runs, and sustains the universe. You are on a
first name basis with God. This is not a distant once in a lifetime
contact with God. It’s a daily walk with the Father who loves you with
an everlasting love. The Father isn’t someone you meet once a year at
an intergalactic spiritual retreat or only at the moment of your death.
He is there all the time doing what He does best, loving you with an
everlasting love, and allowing you to be one of his children.
When you are born spiritually and God
becomes your Father, your self-esteem will never again be in question.
You will not be confused about who you are or where you are going. It
will be all right to be who you are, because God created you and loves
you the way you are.
You don’t need to lead an
image-oriented or performance-oriented lifestyle. You only need to
accept the facts of life. You are worthy because God says so. Your
self-esteem comes from God, because He loves you as you are. Take the
following message from God and indelibly imprint it in your mind.
Listen to what the Father has to say:
“You are my child in whom I am well
pleased. I love you and accept you the way you are, but I love you
too much to let you stay that way. I love you from the top of your
head to the tip of your toes, and it doesn’t get any better than that.
There is no limit to how good your life will become when your heart and
mind are full of my
love. It’s time for you to max out on my love.”
