A Healthy Self-image

2 Corinthians 5:17: "If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!"

What is your self-image?
Has it made a difference to your self-image now that you are a Christian?

Everyone – Christians and non-Christians alike have a self-image.
All of us need to belong, to feel worthy, and to be competent.
A person's Christian commitment should make a difference.
It is a tragedy that some Christians never allow their faith to penetrate deeply enough into their personality
to heal and change their self-image.

When we trust Jesus Christ to be our Saviour, our self-image was not automatically transformed.
We didn't have immediate victory over the deep scars of our past, even though trusting Jesus Christ
to receive the potential, the Holy Spirit, and healing for those wounds and transforming our self-image.

It is a growth process for us to make substantial progress towards thinking and becoming like Jesus Christ.
The changes we see in ourselves now seem almost unbelievable when we look back to the person
we used to be.
Yet, after all these years, not everything is smooth in our lives.
The growth process still continues, and it will until we die.

Paul tells us, "If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!"
(2 Corinthians 5:17)

When a person receives Christ, he becomes a new creation in the process that is being manifested
in a person's daily experience
Most of us have wished that some of the old things would have changed that didn't.
Most of us have the same personal history from our childhood, the same parents,
the same brothers and sisters, and the same experiences.

The factors that didn't change are the ones that influence the formation of our self-image,
so it is no wonder that our self-image didn't change right away.
It was almost the same immediately after conversion as it had been before.

The "new things" Paul talked about were spiritual.
They were internal changes that began to affect us as we started to grow spiritually in the weeks
and months after our conversion.
Many people's experience of being "born again" are similar in that regard.
Only a few experience the immediate dramatic changes that we hear about so often.

We need to shed the old garments.
Jesus said, "Lazarus, come forth!"
And at the command of Jesus a dead body became alive.

Lazarus had been dead four days and was wearing the garments of death.
His body was wrapped in linen.
His body had been soaked in spices to help preserve the dead body.
Nevertheless, new life went right through those grave clothes and into that body.

Lazarus didn't need those garments of death anymore.
As he tried to walk out of the tomb, he found it was difficult to walk.
He was still wrapped in all that clothing.
But still a revitalize Lazarus, managed to shuffle his way to the door.

Then Jesus told the former mourners, "Take off the grave clothes and let him go."
With the help of his friends, Lazarus was set free to experience his new life. (John 11:1-44)
When Lazarus received his new life, the grave wrappings didn't fall off.
It was a process.
The wrappings had to be peeled -- ripped off with the help of others.

As newborn Christians, we also have new life.
But the grave wrappings of an unhealthy self-image, left over from our previous state,
often hamper our ability to function freely in this new life.
Our experience in Christ is a process of having wrappings of an in adequate self-image unwound,
with the help of others, giving us more and more freedom to activate all the potential of our new life in Christ.

Think about the process of maturity.

Did you ever wished that God had transformed you into a mature Christian instantaneously?
At times, immediate maturity seemed far more preferable to all the pain and suffering
that is so often a part of our personal growth.
Yet, God puts us through experiences that demand a maturation process.

We often forget that the apostle Paul, already a religious leader before his conversion,
spent 14 years in a spiritual growth process before he began his missionary journeys and writings.
There is no maturing without this process.

All of us are engaged in this process of growth which included the area of our self-image.
Through our relationship with God, we come to see the way He sees us.
Our awareness of that reality becomes a firm foundation on which our self-image can rest and develop.
That new foundation gives us a sense of worth, security, and hope that we could receive no other way.

Each facet of our self-concept is being reinforced, transformed, and made secure
in the new foundation of our Christian experiences.
This transformation is not just a reinforcing of the old facets of our self-concept -- it is a rebuilding of them.

The process involves more than just taking an old facet of our self-image and placing it on a new foundation.
Part of it requires gaining insights from our new experiences in Christian growth to change
the outlook we had from our experiences from our old personal history.
Then this new outlook can produce not only a healing, but a rebuilding of each facet of our self-image.

Christian transformation is not just a reinforcing of the old self-image -- it is a restructuring of it.
It is like taking out all of the parts of a haphazardly built self-image, and making them anew,
and seeing for the first time where they fit best.
Then we can place them correctly, as they were meant to be placed, realizing that every facet
of our self-image has a proper place in the makeup of our self-image.

The Word of God is used to put each facet of our experiences in the spot
that will best booster our self-image.
Then the Holy Spirit works within us to place the parts of our self-image in their proper places.

As you study the book of Romans, you come to realize that the truest statements about ourselves
is found in the Bible.
We learn that if what we think about us doesn't agree with that, then we are living in a fantasy.
We should remember that our five senses can mislead us.

It is like flying in a storm when the pilot cannot see the horizon.
That pilot may be flying upside down, but his five senses are likely to tell him
that he is flying right side up.
Pilots call this sensation, vertigo.

Everything that the pilot sees, feels, hears, touches, may tell him that he is right side up,
but his instruments tell him that he is upside down.
The pilot knows that the truest thing about his situation is what those instruments are saying.
Pilots have to learn to trust their instruments, not their senses.

Often, we experience what could be called "spiritual vertigo."
In other words, our emotions, our feelings, and our five senses tell us one thing,
but the Word of God tells us that the opposite is true.
Sometimes, we feel we are not forgiven by God, and that we are condemned,
or that we are here on earth and God is off somewhere in outer space.

But because of what the Bible says about us, we can always know that we are children of God.
We learn as we place our trust in what our instrument, the Word of God, says about us.
Then our lives level out, and we start to go forward again.

A healthy self-image is being committed to the truth of God, and of how God sees us.
But we must have the biblical picture of who and what we are in Christ before we can start responding
correctly to what otherwise seems to be an upside down world.

It is like the man who bought a birthday gift for a friend who loved to work puzzles.
He bought the man a picture puzzle, and, as a joke, switched the box tops.
The man who received them became totally frustrated as he tried to put together a puzzle
that he thought should look like the box top.

We must stop using only our feelings and our attitudes about ourselves as the "box top picture" of who we are.
The Word of God provides the true picture that we must go by.
Once we get a good look at that, then we can begin working to put together all the pieces of our lives
to have the correct image of who we are, and what the Word of God teaches us.

So often a person's attitude is developed and decisions are made with wrong assumptions
and inadequate information.
We must base our attitudes on what we think that God thinks about us,
and not on what He actually thinks about us as revealed in His Word.
The truth of Scripture is about us is the starting place for developing a healthy, positive self-image.

A key factor in understanding what is true of us as individuals in Christ is first to understand who God is.
We see this in the following list of God's characteristics and what they mean to us.

God is King of the universe (Psalm 24:8; 1 Chronicles 29:11-12; 2 Chronicles 20:6).
This means that all circumstances are ultimately in God's hand.
God is in control of my life.

God is righteous (Psalm 119:137).
There is no sin in God.
God will not do you and me any wrong.

God is just (Deuteronomy 32:4).
God will always be fair with us.

God is love (1 John 4:8).
God always wants the best for us.

God is eternal (Deuteronomy 33:27).
The plan that God is working out for us is everlasting.

God is all-knowing (2 Chronicles 16:219; Psalm 139:1-6).
God knows all about us and our situations, and He will work them out for our good.

God is everywhere (Psalm 139:7-10).
There is no place that you and I can go that God will not take care of us.

God is all-powerful (Job 42:2).
There is nothing that God cannot do on our behalf.

God is truth (Psalm 31:5).
God cannot lie to us.

God is unchangeable (Malachi 3:6).
We can always depend on God for He is always dependable.

God is faithful (Romans 15:5; Exodus 34:6).
We can always trust God to do what He promises.

God is holy (Revelation 15:4).
God will always be holy in all of His acts.

We must see ourselves as God sees us.

Now that we have remembered who God is, let us look at who we are, as believers.
And let us start at the moment that we received Jesus Christ into our lives.
When we placed our trust in Christ as Saviour and Lord, the Holy Spirit baptizes (or, totally identifies) us with Christ.
1 Corinthians 12:13 says, "For you were all baptized by one Spirit into one body, whether Jews or Greeks,
slaves or free, and we were all given the one Spirit to drink."

This happens to all of us as Christians at the moment of salvation and giving us a new identity.
This is true of us because we are "new creations in Christ."
This wonderful truth is found in Ephesians chapter 1 and chapter 2.
These passages tell us about our true position in Christ.
The theological term for this concept is positional truth.

To see ourselves as God sees us, as we really are, we must understand our position in Christ.
This proper view of ourselves in Christ is important in developing a healthy self-image.
Let us look at some of these truths about us as they are found in the first chapter of Ephesians.

In verse 3 we read, "We are blessed with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places.

In verse 4 we are told that "We are chosen before the foundation of the world that we should be holy
and blameless before Him."

In verse 5 we are reminded that "We are predestined to adoption as sons."

In verse 7 we must remember that "We are redeemed through His blood."

In verse 13 we read the great truth that "We are sealed in Him with the Holy Spirit."

Because of our position in Christ, great things are true of us, and they are truths that God wants us to know.
Paul is reminding the Christians in Ephesus of these things as he prays for them.
Paul prays that the eyes of their hearts may be enlightened, so that they may know
what is the hope of His calling, what are the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints,
and what is their surpassing greatness of His power toward all who who believe. (Ephesians 18, 19)

God is concerned that we see ourselves as He sees us.
Paul goes on to describe the resurrection of Jesus Christ and His seating at the right hand of God
(verses 20-23), and says that we are also resurrected and seated with Him (Ephesians 2:6).

To the positional truths of Ephesians 1, we can add further descriptions of believers trusting in Jesus Christ (Ephesians 2:4-10).
Christians are described as:

Alive together with Christ.
Raised up with Christ.
Seated with Him in the heavenly places.
We are in Christ.
We are saved by grace.
We are His workmanship.

To appreciate even more what it means to be in Christ, compare the above with the following descriptions
of people before they trusted Christ (Ephesians 2:1-3).
They were dead in trespasses and sins.
They were walking according to the prince of the power of this world.
They were living in the lusts of the flesh and of the mind.
They were by nature children of wrath.

However, if you are a believer, you can say the following about yourself:
I have peace with God (Romans 5:1).
I am accepted by God (Ephesians 1).
I am a child of God (John 1:12)
I am indwelt by the Holy Spirit (1 Corinthians 3:16)
I have access to the wisdom of God (James 1:5).
I am helped by God (Hebrews 4:16).
I am reconciled to God (Romans 5:11).
I have no condemnation (Romans 8:1).
I am justified (Romans 5:1).
I have His righteousness (Romans 5:19; 2 Corinthians 5:21).
I am His representative (2 Corinthians 5:20).
I am completely forgiven (Colossians 1:14).
I have my needs that are met by God (Philippians 4:19).
I am tenderly loved (Jeremiah 31:3)
I am the promise of Christ to God (2 Corinthians 2:15).
I am a temple of God (1 Corinthians 3:16)
I am blameless and beyond reproach (Colossians 1:22).

Are you beginning to understand this?
Are you beginning to understand from the above truths what Paul meant when he said,
"Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!"?

One of the keys to maturity is to acknowledge that at the moment you trusted Jesus Christ,
you "put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge in the image of its Creator."
(Colossians 3:10)

We can say that as a result of being "in Christ," we have been re-created.

Sermon was adapted from several sources by Dr. Harold L. White