The Healing Power of Love


01/30/2011 - What Do You See in the Mirror?



When I was kid I liked to go into fun houses at amusement parks or on the boardwalk. And it seemed like in every fun house, either at the very beginning or at the very end they would have a mirror, a fun house mirror.

And the mirror would have curves in it. Some of them would be convex curves that bulged out and others would be concave curves that sank in. And depending on the nature of the curve your body would look either really tall or really short when you looked in the mirror.

And it was fun to walk up to the mirror and see your legs get longer and your body get thinner until you looked like a giant, especially if you were short like I was! Or to walk up and see your body shrink smaller and smaller until you looked like a midget, like one of the munchkins on the Wizard of Oz.

But in either case, whether your body got tall or got short, you were always looking at a distorted image of yourself because what we see in a fun house mirror isn't really who we are. The mirror has curves in it. It's distorted. And no matter what we might do to ourselves to change our appearance we're always going to look distorted in that mirror because the mirror is flawed.

And that can happen in life as well. Imagine growing up in family where your mom and your dad and your brother and your sister and other people important to you took every mirror in the house and curved them in a certain way so that you only ever saw distorted images of yourself. Images like you're ugly and you're dumb and you're no good and you don't belong here and you'll never amount to anything.

What would happen? Well, it wouldn't take very long to develop an image of yourself like the one you were seeing in the family mirrors which may not be who you really are at all. But you didn't know that because you didn't have any other mirrors to look into.

Having a poor image of self is like looking into a curved mirror. And no matter how many changes you make in your appearance or in your achievements or in your accomplishments if you're looking into a curved mirror you're always going to see a distorted picture of yourself.

So maybe it's not yourself that has to change. Maybe it's the mirror that you're looking into. Maybe the fun house mirror has to go and be replaced by an accurate mirror.

This morning we continue our series called The Healing Power of Love with a look at our image of self. Last week I said we turned a corner in this series. The first half was about how we relate to others. And the second half is about how we relate to ourselves. Both are important.

What do you see when you look in the mirror? What's the picture you have of yourself? Is it accurate? Or is it warped and distorted? And why is it important that we have an accurate image of ourselves?

Well, there are a lot of reasons, but in the context of this series its important because Jesus said in Mark 12:30-31, Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength. 31The second is this, love your neighbor as yourself. There is no commandment greater than these.

Loving God and loving others as ourself is why we were put on this earth in the first place. Love is what we were all created for, to reflect the love that God has for us back to him and to share that love with one another.

But if we don't value ourselves we're going to have a hard time valuing others. If we don't respect ourselves we're going to have a hard time respecting others. If we don't love and care for ourselves, in a healthy way, it will be very difficult to love and care for others.

For example, what does a healthy view of self have to do with loving our spouses? A lot! There's no more intimate relationship than the relationship of a husband and a wife described in Scripture as one flesh. That's why divorce is so painful because it rips apart that one flesh relationship. And how we view ourselves affects how we treat our spouses in a big way.

The apostle Paul writes about it this way in Ephesians 5:28-29, In the same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. 29After all, people have never hated their own bodies, but they feed and care for them, just as Christ does the church.

He then goes on to say in verse 31,However, each one of you also must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband.

I think the divorce rate in this country would drop exponentially if married couples took that one sentence seriously. Husbands love your wives the way you love yourself. And wives respect your husbands.

But that statement assumes that we have an accurate, healthy view of ourselves which is essential to being a good husband or a good wife. Unfortunately, many people don't and so they love their spouses the way they love themselves which is not very much and after awhile the marriage falls apart, 50% of the time.

Paul makes another statement about our view of self in Romans 12:3 when he writes, Do not think of yourself more highly than you ought, but rather think of yourself with sober judgment.

Sober judgment, what does that mean? Sober judgment means that we have a balanced view of who we are, not over inflated or under inflated. Sober judgment doesn't overestimate or underestimate ourselves.

Sometimes I think we make a mistake when we confuse a low view of self with humility. That's not the case. In fact, often it's the other way around. A person with a low self-image can be very self-centered, always trying to prove themselves, having to be right in every situation, validating who they are, constantly seeking praise and maneuvering others into reassuring them.

In his bookHealing for Damaged Emotions David Seamands says, "You can't really unconditionally love others when you need to prove your own self-worth. It may look as if you're loving them, when actually you're just using others to reassure yourself that you're okay. Self-negation is not part of humility or holiness or sanctification. Self-crucifixion and self-surrender do not mean the downgrading of self."

So what is this thing called self-image or self-concept or self-worth? And how can we have a healthy one, especially if we grew up in a home with curved mirrors?

Well simply put, self-image is the mental picture we have of ourselves. It's our self-identity. It's who we think we are. And it's formed over the years by a variety of life experiences starting at home. And some of those experiences we've forgotten a long time ago, but they still influence our thinking and our feeling about ourselves. Self-image is our sensation of being somebody.

One of my first exposures to this whole idea of self-image came during my first year of seminary when I took a pastoral counseling course and the book that we used for the course was called The Sensation of Being Somebody written by Maurice Wagner. And I can remember the course being one of those "Ah Ha! experiences" full of insight, at least for me.

And in the preface of his book Wagner writes, "An adequate self-concept is a precious possession. An inadequate self-concept is a handicap. Persons with an inadequate view of self spend lots of attention, time, and energy trying to establish a secure premise of self-identity in each situation instead of being able to function because they already have such a premise.

"Some people are so completely preoccupied with feelings of being a nobody, in a world of people who seem to them to be more or less stable some bodies, that they can scarcely apply themselves to any certain task ... People with a good self-concept function because they know who they are. They are not always trying to become."

Hence the title of his bookThe Sensation of Being Somebody notThe Sensation of Trying to Become Somebody.

Wagner then spends the rest of his book talking about the essential components of a healthy self-image. And in his mind there are three.

First, is a sense of belongingness. We all need the sense that we belong, that we fit in somewhere, that we're loved. It's the feeling of being wanted or desired by a person or a group of people. We all want to belong.

Second, is a sense of worth or value. We all need to feel that we count, that we matter, that we have something to offer.

And third, is a sense of competence. We all need a sense that we can face life and cope with its challenges, that we can do this.

I belong. I count. I can. Those are the three essentials of a healthy view of self, at least according to Maurice Wagner. And together they affirm the sensation of being somebody.

He compares them to the three legs of a tripod. They all work together to give support and stability to our lives. But if one of these three feelings is weak, then our self-image totters like a camera on a tripod when one leg is slipping.

Now this is where it gets real interesting. God in his infinite wisdom addresses each one of these feelings through each person of the Trinity. God knows and affirms our need for belongingness, our need for value and worth, and our need to feel competent which really shouldn't surprise us because God created us.

And he shows us these things through the mirror of the Scriptures. If we want an accurate picture of who we really are we need to smash the fun house mirror and exchange it for the mirror of God's Word. And when we do, this is what we discover.

We discover that in our relationship with God the Father we're assured of belongingness. We belong. As believers in Jesus Christ we are in the family of God. God is our heavenly Father and we are his beloved sons and daughters.

I could show you numerous Scripture passages on all of these, but just listen to1 John 3:1,See what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are!

When you look in the mirror you are looking at a child of God who is loved incredibly by God the Father, the one who created you, the one who has a plan to eventually make you just as pure as his son, Jesus Christ.

1 John 3:2-3, Dear friends, now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when Christ appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is. 3All who have this hope in him purify themselves, just as he is pure.

An accurate view of we are and what we will become one day can help us lead a pure life right now. That's powerful! Do you see yourself as a child that God loves? Maybe not in the fun house mirror, but that's what you look like in God's mirror.

We discover in our relationship with Jesus, God the Son, a sense of worthiness. We count. We matter. We matter so much that Jesus died for us. Who else ever did that for you?

Romans 5:6-8, You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. 7Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous person, though for a good person someone might possibly dare to die. 8But God demonstrated his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

That's value my friend. Next time you're tempted to think you're "a nothing" think of what Jesus did for you. He didn't die for a nothing. He died for you because you mean so much to him. You count. You matter. You're worth it. Look in the mirror and say that about yourself because it's true!

We discover belongingness in God the Father, worth in God the Son, and competence in God the Holy Spirit.

In our relationship with the Holy Spirit, we're assured of competence. We can. We can face life and cope with its challenges through the power of God's Spirit. The Holy Spirit is with us and in us as we face the stress and struggles of everyday life.

2 Timothy 1:7, For the Spirit that God gave us does not make us timid, but gives us power, love, and self-discipline.

I belong in God the Father. I count in God the Son. I can in God the Holy Spirit. I am somebody as a follower of Jesus Christ. That's what you see when you look in the mirror of God's Word. We look very different than we do in the fun house mirror. But the choice is ours. What mirror are we going to use?

We're somebody to the Father because he's accepted us into his family as one of his very own children. We're somebody to the Son because He died for us personally on the cross. We're somebody to the Holy Spirit because He's with us and in us and empowers us to deal with the struggles of this life.

In his book David Seamands writes, "What right do you have to belittle or despise someone whom God loves so deeply? What right do you have to belittle or despise someone whom God values so highly? What right do you have to belittle or despise someone whom God has provided for so fully or planned for so carefully? What right do you have to belittle or despise someone in whom God delights?

"From where will you get your idea of yourself? From the distortions of your childhood? From past hurts and false ideas that have been programmed into you? Or from God's opinion of you? Let him reprogram you until his loving estimate becomes a part of your life right down to your innermost feelings.

"Let God love you and let him teach you how to love yourself and others better. Enter the healing process so that you can lift your head high as a son or daughter of the great King, God Himself."


Questions of the Week

  • What are some things in our lives that contribute to a healthy self-image? What contributes to an unhealthy self-image? Why do you think it's important to have a balanced view of ourselves?
  • How can having a low self-image contribute to self-centeredness? How can having a healthy self image help us to be more other-oriented?
  • Have you ever considered the relationship between our view of God and our view of self? How does thinking about the Trinity shape how we think about ourselves? In what ways does the work of Christ speak to our self-worth?
  • Bruce talked about three areas that help us to have a balanced self-image: belongingness, worth, and competence, or I belong, I count, and I can. In what ways do these three areas contribute to a healthy community? How can we at Valley View bring out the best in each other in these areas?