Image Building

"Image building is the attempt to make impressions that are bigger then we are"..Beth Moore

 

Wow, that quote hits pretty deep. I can relate. Can you? I am insecure. There I said it.

When I take photos, I filter the filters I use to edit the way I look.

 I wear makeup to cover up imperfections.

I wear roll sucking under garments to hide the fact that I have 3 kids

 over 8 pounds and my body ain't what it used to be.

I dye my hair to cover the grey strands of hair that seem to pop up monthly.

I buy the "good" bras from my girlfriend Victoria...but its no secret that the girls will never look like that at bed time. Hello real life.

I occasionally buy take out and put it on nice dinnerware to fake out guest. Ooooo is that a no no?

I want to be extraordinary, not ordinary!

What was/am I doing?

Image building. Trying to make something bigger and better then it really is.

 

2 Timothy 3:2-5 (NIV) ² People will be lovers of themselves..

This is a type of love that is very different from the self-giving love God wants us to have.

It is self-selling.

 

"we are so thoroughly indoctrinated in image building that I'm not sure we easily recognize the difference between excelling and self-selling..." Beth Moore, Daniel

 

Can you think of some ways that would be Excelling and Self-Selling for your image?

If we are trying to become something we are not, we are image building.

There are signs of image building all around us a women.

Magazines, social media and entertainment.

 

In a recent bible study discussion, us ladies were discussing the effect of living in another woman's shadow. That is not what this is about, but it has its similarities. For instance, it was mentioned...

How we sometimes desire to look like a specific celebrity...but in reality, we don't have the entourage that they have to build their "image" that we see and want.

We are constantly sizing each other up.

 

These things do not build true beauty.

The more we focus on Gods love and mercy, the more we will be able to understand how much he loves us. Then we wont have to focus on building our image for others to love us. We will love ourselves as Christ loves US.

 

Your real, new self (which is Christ’s and also yours, and yours just because it is His) will not come as long as you are looking for it. It will come when you are looking for Him. Does that sound strange? The same principle holds, you know, for more everyday matters. Even in social life, you will never make a good impression on other people until you stop thinking about what sort of impression you are making. Even in literature and art, no man who bothers about originality will ever be original whereas if you simply try to tell the truth (without caring twopence how often it has been told before) you will, nine times out of ten, become original without ever having noticed it. The principle runs through all life from top to bottom, Give up yourself, and you will find your real self. Lose your life and you will save it. Submit to death, death of your ambitions and favourite wishes every day and death of your whole body in the end submit with every fibre of your being, and you will find eternal life. Keep back nothing. Nothing that you have not given away will be really yours. Nothing in you that has not died will ever be raised from the dead. Look for yourself, and you will find in the long run only hatred, loneliness, despair, rage, ruin, and decay. But look for Christ and you will find Him, and with Him everything else thrown in.

~Mere Christianity