A New Creation | Class 4 - "New Picture of Self" | Malcolm Cox Malcolm Cox

What is my picture of myself?

Introduction
- Do you like how you look? Have you ever seen yourself on video? How did you react. I'll never forget the first time I saw myself on film. We had a preaching training session. Each of us gave a short presentation while being videoed. We received immediate feedback from the people present, but were asked to watch ourselves on the video later. I was shocked. Did I really stand like that? Was my face actually contorting in that way? Why was I staring at the floor while speaking?! It was an eye-opening experience.
- However, our inner view of ourselves matters much more than wether we have an accurate picture of our physical behaviour.
- Our picture of ourselves is shaped by our picture of God. Correcting the latter is vital before attempting to heal the former.
- Common to have unhealthy scripts in our heads - either "I'm not good enough" and/or "I'm the centre of the universe". Most of have both, but at different times in different circumstances.





Why is my picture of myself so critical?


Christians must take this seriously because our growth into being a new creation depends on cooperating with God in his grand project to transform us into ever-increasing Christ-likeness.
2 Corinthians 3.18
“And all of us, with unveiled faces, seeing the glory of the Lord as though reflected in a mirror, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another; for this comes from the Lord, the Spirit.”
My picture of myself is both the symptom and cause of ongoing malformation. To be healthy spiritually means working for God from a place of acceptance, not for acceptance. Do we truly believe there is nothing we can do to make God love us more and there is nothing we can do to make God love us less? It is vital that we find a way to deliberately surrender our need to work to be accepted.
We do this by allowing God to re-shape our picture of ourselves by contemplating what He says about us. Let's look at some Scriptures to help us with this.



2. What can we say about who we are?

a. You are made in the image of God -
Genesis 1.27
“So God created humankind in his image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.”


There is a distinction between the animals and us -- the animals came from ‘the land’ -
Genesis 1.24-25
“Then God said, “Let the earth bring forth living creatures after their kind: cattle and creeping things and beasts of the earth after their kind”; and it was so. God made the beasts of the earth after their kind, and the cattle after their kind, and everything that creeps on the ground after its kind; and God saw that it was good.”Humanity is distinctive in that we were created directly by God. The animals come from the earth, we come from above.
God's creative work prior to creating humans was 'good'.
After creating humans, God said his work was very good,
Genesis 1.31
“God saw all that He had made, and behold, it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day.”
We are immeasurably valuable to God because we are his beloved little image bearers, and this makes a difference to who we think we are. It also changes what we think about other people and how we treat them. More on that later.

b. You are already accepted as God's beloved


God wants to include us in His love
John 3.16
““For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life.”God sent Jesus because he already loved us, not so we would become lovable. We don't always feel beloved, but God knows this and stands ready to reassure us - just like he did with Jesus.
Jesus -
Mark 1.11
“and a voice came out of the heavens: “You are My beloved Son, in You I am well-pleased.””;
Matthew 17.5
“While he was still speaking, a bright cloud overshadowed them, and behold, a voice out of the cloud said, “This is My beloved Son, with whom I am w