Made in Our Image
How much time do you spend on image management? A simple question from a friend may give some indication.
When a friend asks, “Hey, what have you been up to lately?”, what’s your response?
If you’ve just gotten up from a three-hour nap, and the yard still needs to be mown, do you tell them that? OR… do you string together your recent to-do list to give the perception of busy-ness and frenetic activity to prove your power, worth, value, and productivity? If you understand this, you understand image management.
To some degree it’s why we hit the gym. It’s why we say things like, “I really don’t watch much TV,” when we would ditch most anything NOT to miss the next episode of “This Is Us” or “Empire.” Image management is why we yell at the kids to stop fighting just before walking into the church building on Sundays. Image management may be why dirty dishes are hurriedly over-stuffed into the dishwasher before dinner guests arrive.
The cosmetic/beauty industry generates a whopping $62.5 billion a year in the U.S. alone. Image management. Wouldn’t hair extensions just be wrong without our insatiable appetites for image management?
Why do you think image management is even a thing? Perhaps because our idea of “good” is so strong. We want desperately to be good people. We want other people to think we are good. But if we’re not careful, our skewed idea of good becomes our plan for salvation. And there is no amount of good we can muster that is good enough to pay our sin debt to the only One who is ultimately good.
On Sunday, we’ll be gathering at 9:00 & 11:00 a.m. to look at a young man who pursued his own goodness with great vim and vigor. Mark 10:17-31 will be our text this weekend. It’s all about a rich young man who was consumed with image management and skewed goodness. His own goodness kept him from experiencing the goodness of God. The solution, as Jesus suggests, is radical surgery for this young, religious hipster. The lesson will be good for all of us who dabble in or professionally pursue image management.
I’m excited to be back from Kenya. Thank you for your prayers! My heart is full, and I can’t wait to teach and share with you this weekend. You should reach out and invite a good friend. It would be a good thing to do, because trying to be good is exhausting, and we may need radical surgery as well. Tell them you’re inviting them to a money series that isn’t about money! THAT could be good.
This is the third week of our “Your Money Is All We Want (and other myths about church giving).” The Lord is teaching us, and the Gospel is growing larger in our hearts and church. See you soon!
Blessings,
Weekly Giving | 2.26.17
$34,689.00
Weekly Need $39,700.00
