Telling the Truth for Women

Jill Briscoe: I would like you to turn in your Bible to Romans chapter 12, verses one and two. We're in a series called "Body Language." There are more ways to communicate than articulated speech. Remember, most people spend 25 minutes a day with words trying to say something to each other. The rest of the time, we communicate with grunts and shrugs, walking away and stomping our feet, and all of those other things. But we can communicate positive things as well, and that's what we're talking about. What does our body language say to our world? Well, that all depends on who rules our body, who rules our minds.

Let me just read verses one and two to you. "Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God's mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God. This is your spiritual act of worship. Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is: His good, pleasing, and perfect will." Let's have a word of prayer. Speak, Lord, in the stillness, while we wait on Thee. Hush our hearts to listen in expectancy. Speak, oh blessed Master, in this hallowed hour. Let us hear Thy voice, Lord; feel Thy touch of power. For Christ's sake, amen.

Now, our thoughts influence our behavior and determine what we are like. What we think, we are, which is rather frightening if we think about it at all. The quality of our lives, in other words, closely relates to our thinking. Remember, we talked about the body being the earthly vehicle whereby a spiritual entity or a spiritual being gets around in a physical environment. God thought up a wonderful way that we could touch the environment of which we're a part and so relate to it. And the thought He had resulted in the body we wear. We live inside this body. The body is very definitely simply the vehicle whereby we get around our physical environment.

But who directs it? Do we direct it? Do I direct it, or does God direct it? The answer to that determines our body language. We talked about the reasons why we should present this body to God as a living sacrifice. The answer to that, of course, was because of the mercies of God. Do you remember the way that we went back into the book of Romans and we found that key verse that talked about Jesus Christ giving Himself as a living sacrifice? We talked about the cross, which is the "I" crossed out, and Christ's body language upon the cross showing us that's what life should be all about: the selfishness in us negated.

God can do that for us and help us to do that. Because He died for us, then no sacrifice could be too great for us to make for Him. We used the Apostle Paul as an example of body language, how after his conversion his body said to a world something very different to the things his body was saying to the world before he met Jesus Christ on the road to Damascus. We thought of other examples like missionaries, like C.T. Studd, who had given his life because of the overwhelming gratitude he felt because of what God had done for him upon the cross.

In other words, it's a reasonable service to present the whole of us to God that He might use us and work through us. It's a rational, reasonable thing to do. In fact, the Bible has told us it is our spiritual worship. Don't think of spiritual worship as coming to church on Sunday and singing a hymn. Spiritual worship is faith with boots on. If we do not do because of what we think and believe, then we do not believe at all, so says the Apostle James and so says Jesus, which is more important.

So let's go on to our minds. We've thought about our bodies, now let's think about our minds. Let me read this verse from Phillips translation: "Don't let the world around you squeeze you into its own mold, but let God remold your minds from within so that you may prove in practice that the plan of God for you is good, meets all His demands, and moves towards the goal of true maturity." Don't let the world around you squeeze you into its own mold, or don't live after the pattern of this world, or don't live after the fashion of this age. All are good examples of a translation of that verse.

So what is the pattern of this world out of which is cut the fashion of this age that we must resist wearing? Let me say that again. What is the pattern of this world out of which is cut the fashion of this age that we must resist wearing? What is this world that the Bible refers to? Well, this has reference to the spiritual state of the world, not its material state. What is the spirit of this age then? The world's standards. Well, what are these world standards that we mustn't conform to, that we must resist, that we mustn't adapt or imitate, that we mustn't like, and certainly not love?

In fact, in 1 John 2:15-17, we read this: "Don't love the world or anything in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For everything in the world—the cravings of sinful man, the lust of his eyes and the boasting of what he has and does—comes not from the Father but from the world. The world and its desires pass away, but the man who does the will of God lives forever."

So the world has reference to its own standards, this spiritual state that we're talking about, the spirit of this world. My husband has a good definition of this verse that talks about the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life in the old King James Bible. What is the lust of the flesh? Passion. What is the lust of the eyes? Possessions. What is the pride of life? Position. Maybe that'll help you to remember it: passion, possessions, and position is the fashion of this age.

What's fashionable today? Passion, possessions, position. That about says it all. But in case it doesn't, I'll just amplify it a little bit for you. King James, the lust of the flesh; NIV, the cravings of sinful man; Phillips, the whole world system based as it is on man's primitive desires. Look at your ads on the television. So many times it's sex that's selling things. The dress, the body that is pushed at us from everywhere. It is the fashion of the age. The problem is we mustn't be pressed into its mold. It's the spirit of the world.

Possessions, the lust of the eyes, or Phillips says, their greedy ambitions. Good News says what people see and want. That's the spirit of the age. When enough isn't enough, we never have enough of this or enough of that, or enough money or enough vacations, or enough clothes, or enough things to do or see or taste, or enough things for our children to do. How many things our kids are involved in—those poor little things, they're busier than we are. When I was growing up, you sort of found your own things to do. I don't think the children have space to find their own things to do anymore because we find things to do for them. We sign them up for ten different things through the summer.

But it's all part of the spirit of the age, and we mustn't be pressed into that mold. When enough is enough for a Christian, we have enough if we have a spiritual relationship to Christ and things that we need, not things that we want. Things that we want is the spirit of the age, not things that we need. Of course, the status symbols will give us a clue to this. The spirit of the age says you've got to have the things that give you status, like the right car or the right home, or even where the home is.

Now they tell us the status symbol is the sports equipment that you acquire—the jacuzzi or whatever it is in the backyard. Consumer sales have just gone right through the roof on these sorts of leisure time equipment. So what people see and want is in. To see something is to want it. To want it is to buy it, whether we've got money to buy it or not. And so we are a credit land in debt. We used to call that the "never-never" at home. Let's buy it on the never-never. I think we are a country of never-never people. We'll buy it when we don't have money to buy because I see it and I want it, and that's the spirit of the age. Christians are not to be molded, pressed into the mold of that. We are not to love the world and the spirit of the world.

And then position. King James, the pride of life. NIV, the boasting of what looks good or what we do. The glamour of all they think splendid, Phillips says. Position. In other words, the thought of that is the "me" generation, the Narcissus-type thinking. Narcissus was the fellow that was a god in Greek mythology, and he went along a little path and he found a pool and he bent down and looked in it and he saw his own reflection in the pool. And he fell in love with himself. So when you hear about the narcissistic generation, that's what it means: we have fallen in love with ourselves.

Now, you don't need to have me explain that to you or to convince you of it. Just buy any number of magazines. "Self" is a good one; that's why they called it "Self." So if you want to see how you can improve yourself, get a magazine like "Self," "Ms." magazine, "New Woman," all the magazines that tell us how to revolve around ourselves, how to be better. Now some of this is good, and we'll touch that later, but some of it is just reflecting the spirit of the age. What matters is me: Am I getting my needs met? Am I thin enough? Am I fat enough? Am I clever enough? Am I educated enough? Am I exercising enough?

Erma Bombeck, that wonderful prophetess, has given me a summation of this. She wrote this: "During the last year, I have dissected my marriage, examined my motives for buying, interpreted my fantasies, come to grips with midlife, found inner peace, out of flab, charted my astrological stars, become my best and only friend. I have brought order to my life, meditated, given up guilt, adjusted to the numerology, and spent every living hour understanding me, interpreting me, and loving me. And you know what? I'm bored to death of me. I'm bored to death of me."

And as I go around this world and minister to women and meet women, get to know them and listen to women, I am finding that women are bored to death of me. But that's the spirit of the age. I've got to be happy. My happiness matters more than staying in this marriage where I'm unhappy and making the best of a bad job on the way to making the best of a good job. Surely God wouldn't want me to be unhappy. That's the spirit of the age, and we have to resist it.

Now, of course, when we think of the spirit of this world—passion, possessions, and position—I think it's summed up most of all in the word "eros." Paul in Corinthians tells us to come out from among them and be separate, in the sense not of isolation but of separation from the conformity or the complicity in that spirit of the age. And so it's how our minds are absorbing all this information that we're bombarded with: that passion is what matters. And so even in our bedrooms with our husbands, the spirit of the age comes in and we say, "Should I be performing in some weird way? Is that what I should be doing?" Why? Because we are being molded according to the spirit of the age.

The Bible has lots to say about sex. God thought of it in the first place. It's us that's messed the idea up and perverted it. He talks about enjoying sex within the confines of marriage. And He talks about when to withhold and when to pray and when to give and when to use our body to bless. And so there's a lot in the Bible about sex, but the spirit of the age says "get," not "give." Lust instead of love, really. Instead of using our bodies to bless, using the body to get. And there's a difference, and we mustn't conform.

Now, who is the spirit behind the spirit of the age? The god of this world who's blinded the minds of those that believe not, or the minds of unbelievers, lest the light of the Gospel of the glory of Christ should shine in unto them. He is an angel of light. But you know Satan's light, the god of this age who's called Belial—and that means worthlessness, uselessness—his light is very different from the light of the glory of Christ. It's neon opposed to sunlight, if you like. I've often stood in my London—and I love to do it—in Piccadilly Circus, surrounded by the neon lights. And the neon lights are wonderful from a world's point of view; they're fun. But they're neon. And some people live their lives, all their lives, in neon lighting, and they never see the sunlight.

And there's a difference. He's an angel of light, and he will blind people. You know that lovely hymn, "Oh Jesus I Have Promised." There's a verse in it that says this: "Oh let me feel Thee near me, the world is ever near. I see the sights that dazzle, the tempting sounds I hear. My foes are ever near me, around me and within; but Jesus, draw Thou near me, and shield my soul from sin." So Satan would blind us.

So we've got to remember that the Bible tells us not to be conformed to the spirit of this age. Now, that's all negative, and I don't like talking negatively for too long because I believe Christianity is a positive faith. So now we come onto the positive. "Be not conformed to the spirit of the age or any longer to the pattern of this world. Don't wear its clothes. Don't be pressed into its mold. But be transformed." Now we come onto the positive. "Be transformed by the renewing of your mind."

Now, the word "transformed" means to change the external form, to undergo transformation, and in this case, spiritual transformation. The transformation of somebody who has come into faith in Christ should appear through the body. The body should reflect what's going on because the mind is now marching to another drumbeat—not the spirit of the age, the fashion of this world, but the Spirit of God and the fashion of His world and His values and His standards. But the word is really interesting. It's the same word that's used when Jesus went up the Mount of Transfiguration—transfigured, transformed.

Now, what happened when Jesus went up the Mount of Transfiguration? He was changed. What was changed? His outer appearance. There was absolutely no mistaking the fact that there was a change that the disciples, who had lived with Him up to that point, traveled with Him, saw Him with their own physical eyes—they saw a transformation. The English word that is a derivative from the Greek is "metamorphosis." A metamorphosis: a striking alteration as in appearance and character and circumstances, an abrupt change.

Immediately you say "metamorphosis," what does that bring to mind? Well, if you've got a mind like mine, it brings the little bugs, the little cocoons to mind and the butterfly. And that is indeed what is intended. Be ye transformed. Let your mind go through a metamorphosis: an abrupt change that is absolutely unmistakable. And why? Because what you think, you are. And the body begins to reflect the new thinking of the new man that you have become in Jesus Christ.

Years ago, in my book *The Snake in the Garden*, I wrote a poem for a girl that I was trying to help. She needed desperately a metamorphosis in her life. She needed a change in her life. She needed Christ; she needed to know His love and forgiveness. And when she came to the Lord, I began to watch that metamorphosis take place. But I observed something. She had lived inside that cocoon so long that she didn't want to burst out. And that reminds me of many, many Christians. Even if there's life—and there was life in the cocoon—we're afraid to burst out. We're afraid of the change of turning from a bug into a butterfly. And I sat up one day, oh, it must have been a month after I'd come here, that this happened to me and I'd run into this young lady from the Jesus movement, actually. She had an American flag patched on her behind. She was an extraordinary girl, lots of potential. And I wrote her a poem. And this was the poem:

Wouldn't it be lovely if a bug could stay always

Warm inside its silk cocoon, protected all its days?

Alone in dark oblivion, no need to fly the skies.

Let's face it: God's rebellious world's no place for butterflies.

Now God, He made these little bugs and placed within His life,

So growth, the natural evidence, brings strain and stress and strife.

For as she grows, the cozy case becomes a prison strong.

The bug now knows she must break out; to stay a bug is wrong.

At last the struggle over, the butterfly is free

To fly God's earth, upheld by Him in matchless symmetry.

Cries watching man in God's lost world, "A miracle is this!"

From crumpled bug to butterfly: God's metamorphosis.

And you know, as people watch, as people watch the change in our lives because our mind is being renewed by the Spirit, which is evidenced by what our body does and how it acts and how it dresses and how it looks and what it does and where it goes, then they say, "A miracle is this! From crumpled bug to butterfly: God's metamorphosis." And that's what He calls us to. Be transformed by the renewing of your mind. To change the external form because of what is happening from within.

Now, maybe you are conformed to your cocoon in your mind. Oh, you've received life. Jesus Christ has come into your heart, but you are not allowing your mind to struggle out into this freedom of this new world, into the sunlight. Oh, there is light in your cocoon, but it comes through the cocoon. And the idea is that the renewal of our mind as Christians should be an expansive thing, should take us like that little butterfly, though it be vulnerable, fluttering in a world that it didn't know existed.

Have you been investigating those spiritual truths? Be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind. The problem is it's too comfortable to wrestle with those issues. It's too challenging and we want to stay within that cocoon. Of course, there is a choice to renewal. There is a choice of change and cost. What is that in practical terms? Well, garbage in, garbage out. What are you watching? What's in there in the cocoon with you? Nobody can see it in the cocoon. What you need to do, perhaps, is to make the choice and quit watching so many soap operas.

Have you noticed how the soaps get to you? Have you noticed how they influence you? Have you noticed how the spirit of the age and the fashion of this world, when you absorb yourself and soak your mind in this, begins to get into your relationships? And you begin to feel my relationship is even lacking with my husband because it should be like this! Maybe renewal is a choice, and you have to struggle to turn away one hour a week to take the time that you are putting in whatever you're putting in and put in something that's going to make the difference instead. It's a choice. It's a choice.

I took a little survey once of what people watch on TV, and Christian women, and I was absolutely horrified and amazed. And that's where the choice is. So I want to be as practical as I can. What is the one thing that you could give to God to make sure that your mind is renewed after the Lord? Are we going to walk after the flesh, as Paul puts it, or after the Spirit? Are we going to walk after the fashion of this age and be pressed—let them press our mind in a mold—or are we going to be molded after Jesus Christ?

So, be not conformed. Be transformed. And how's that going to happen? By being informed. By being informed. Now, we've been talking about our mind without ever having defined it. What is the mind? It's who I am. It refers to all our mental activities: thinking, learning, problem-solving, concentrating, perceiving, remembering. It's the appreciation I can have of the moral of a story. It's the punchline of jokes that this mind is able to understand. It's the moral choice. I can look at something and say that's right, and I can look at something and say that's wrong. Why? Because I have a mind. It's the part of me that interprets, that makes decisions.

So you say, is the mind the brain? Gary Collins, in his wonderful book *The Magnificent Mind*—super book, maybe you'd like to get yourself one of these copies and go through it. It incredibly touches on everything to do with your mind. He's a wonderful psychologist, a Christian man. But in his book—and I've thoroughly enjoyed reading it this week—he says no, the mind is not the brain. And he also quotes experts, Christian and other, that say no, the mind is not the brain. The mind, as it were, has a chemical base in the brain. And yet brains and bodies wear out, but minds can be expanded and grow and as sharp as you like, even at the point of death.

So the mind and the brain certainly have an operation together, rather like the man and his computer. The man is the mind and the computer is the brain. And that's a very simplistic way of putting it, but that's the illustration that Gary Collins uses, and I think it's very good.

The brain itself, of course, is created by God as the mind, the soul. The Bible often talks about the mind as the soul interchangeably. But the mind itself, the brain itself, is wonderful. And in here, Gary Collins has just a little bit, I'm going to just read you a little bit of his book because it's super. He says it's a marvel of complexity. First of all, he's been talking about dendrites, those little wires that don't quite touch but send the electrical impulses from one to another that's all wound round in our brain. And if you took them out and stretched them, they'd reach from here to the moon and back. That's how many we've got of these little wires. Can you imagine that? And all of that, incidentally, is complete in the mind of a baby in its mother's womb.

We are fearfully and wonderfully made. It's an incredible brain, marvel of complexity. The dendrites don't actually touch, but they're able efficiently and rapidly to pass messages to each other. Information comes down the dendrite in the form of an electrical impulse. This impulse triggers the discharge of a chemical secretion. The chemical floats across the tiny space between the synapses, bumps into the neighboring dendrite and starts another electrical charge that sends the message on its way. This whole process takes less than 1/1000 of a second through the whole thing.

And remember, if you stretch them out, they go from here to the moon and back. That whole process takes 1/1000 of a second. All of this is so complex the brain cannot even begin to comprehend its own complexity. According to one writer, the number of connections within one human brain rivals the number of stars and galaxies in the universe, while the number of neurons is several times greater than the population of earth. In the course of one day, it's estimated that adults lose about 100,000 brain cells due to aging. But so many cells are left, we are fully capable of normal thinking well into old age. That's what's wrong with me! How depressing. Just thinking about that. Since I last saw you, I've lost 700,000 brain cells.

How wonderful though. So what is the brain? It's God's creation, the chemical base that the mind can feed information into, interpret, make decisions. All of that happens in the human being. Now, the renewal of the mind, therefore, is very important because what's fed into this computer is what eventually is interpreted and lived out through our bodies.

We can change behavior and attitudes through mind control. And take no doubt about it, there is a battle for our minds. We can have a renewed mind. For example, let me give you an example. Maybe you didn't get an invitation to a party. Now, if you have an unrenewed mind, you might say this: "I didn't get an invitation to the party. I'm hurt. I feel rejected. I'm angry. I'm resentful." And that gives you a bad self-image because your self-image is caught up in what people think of you or what people do to you. Your identity's in that. "I'm ugly," you say. "I must be, or they would have invited me to the party," or "They don't like me." And we interpret the motives of other people.

Now then, a renewed mind says, "I didn't get an invitation to the party. Maybe I'm a little hurt, but I forgive them for not inviting me to the party. Jesus and I'll have a party all on our own. I'll give them the benefit of the doubt. Why should they invite me to the party? I'm ugly, yes, that hasn't changed, but it doesn't matter because God made me as I am and He thinks I'm beautiful. And my identity is not in somebody else; my identity is in being accepted by Him."

And so the renewal of the mind is very important because it interprets the computerized messages that it receives. Now, the Spirit renews our mind. Colossians 3:9-11 tells us that. We are renewed after the new man into the image of Christ. It's the Spirit's work. It comes when we've repented, we've found Christ, the Spirit has come into our life and we have the mind of Christ. What does that mean? It means that the Spirit of Christ is Christ Himself, is the mind of Christ, the soul of Christ. And He will lend us His thinking. He will help us to think our thoughts after God.

That's exciting! But this requires us putting some effort into it. It requires us thinking about God, about ourselves, and about others. And the renewed mind is renewed in three avenues: what I think about God, what I think about others, and what I think about myself.

The Bible says "gird up the loins of your minds." A renewed mind girds up its loins. What does this mean? "Loins" is an old-fashioned term. In the Middle East, they had long flowing gowns on. And if they wanted to run anywhere or get somewhere fast, they used to take all that material and put it up and use something to tie it up around their loins, around their stomach area. And the apostle uses this: gird up the loins of your mind. Some of us need to get rid of all the stuff that's hanging around our minds and to get rid of it so that our minds can run after the information that we need to find that will give us our thoughts, what God has in mind for us.

Be not carried away by every wind of doctrine. The mind needs to interpret the information that we're getting. And are we ever getting things! Even through the mail in this last month, I've got things that are after my mind. John Stott says your mind matters. He talks about a man who came into church and told him, "I feel like unscrewing my head and putting it under the seat whenever I go to church because in a religious meeting I never have any use for anything above my collar." Now, he hadn't obviously heard John Stott until that day, and he was thanking him for the fact he'd had to use his mind.

But there is clear evidence our minds can be controlled by others, twisted and distorted, or molded by God. And in a very popular magazine, I found an incredible article this week: "Can supernatural beliefs improve your luck?" He talks about two women, Marion and Amy. Marion goes to her palmist each week to see what the palmist will tell her about life. Amy is a Roman Catholic and goes to confession. He says there's really no difference between the two. Both Marion and Amy believe in a kind of unseen spirit force or agency whose existence hasn't been proven to anybody's satisfaction. We can refer to both beliefs as exercises in supernaturalism.

He observes that people that have a belief—it doesn't matter what in—are usually lucky. So if you want to be lucky, what you need to do is to get a supernatural belief. "I've met many people who consider themselves lucky in life, and I've discovered that lucky people as a breed tend to be supernaturalists. Some are devoutly religious—Christians or Jews—while others harbor occult beliefs or enjoy playing humorously with supernatural formulas." He said it really doesn't matter as long as you find one of these systems.

Now, there is a cornucopia of other choices. The tarot is a lot of fun, though it's complicated. Numerology has the virtue of being simpler than most other occult or religious disciplines. It can be complicated if you want it to be, but it can be reduced to a simple act of espousing one or a few lucky numbers. Or you can simply invent your own system. One way to do this is to take a standard system and modify it to your taste. Now, there are millions of people who adhere in a general way to Christianity, for example, but take no part in traditional observances. They belong to no churches or synagogues, and they have no interest in Sunday or Sabbath rituals. They have been able to modify the religion to suit their personal taste. They've simplified it, pared down the rituals, reduced the demands. A traditional minister, priest, or rabbi may tell you that you can't just take a religion and remodel it to suit yourself—oh, but you can. Belief is personal.

The god of this age—remember he's a god of this age—he has no intention of taking religiosity or supernaturalism away from people. He just wants to confuse them and blind them with what there is out there. Now, it's got to be the renewed mind that sees the difference in all of this. And I know Christian women who have not been grounded in the faith and the truth, who are into a little bit of all of that stuff that I talked about. Where does TM come in? Doesn't the Bible talk about meditation? And if you're not careful, then the mind is not able to rightly see the genuine from the false.

My husband used to be a bank inspector, and they used to lock him up in a big vault with all this money to count. They'd go into the bank just before closing time, shut everything off, take the keys off everybody, and start and count the money. And this is the way that they found all the people that were getting the bank's money mixed up with theirs. Well, he would count for hours all evening. And he'd count the real stuff. This way, if ever he saw a counterfeit note, he'd know it immediately. "That's counterfeit!" How did he know it? Because he was used to looking at the real thing.

Now, some Christian women say, "But I need to know what they believe," or "I need to go to a course on Hinduism. Maybe it could fit into my Christianity. Maybe I could get my own system, craft my own religion." Why don't you spend time looking at the genuine stuff? Then you will know when the counterfeit comes along. And it is a very dangerous thing indeed for a young believer or someone that has not been grounded in the truths of Christianity to feed into this computer an awful lot of counterfeit that almost looks like the real thing. And counterfeit money is very hard to tell apart sometimes. Some of it's easy, but some of it's hard.

So what I think about God is very important. What I think about what the Bible says and the interpretation of some of the verses in it. I need a renewed mind, and I need the Holy Spirit to guard me against error. If I do this, I'm told that I'll prove God's will is good and perfect and acceptable. That doesn't mean I'll understand what's happening, but I'll understand what to do while it's happening.

In other words, the person with the renewed mind gets the right view of God. And whatever happens in his life, even though hard things happen, it isn't that he understands those hard things. Who can understand some things that happen? I certainly can't. Some things seem to be past understanding. But we understand and trust that God knows what He's doing, and we can trust Him with it.

Ruth Graham has a poem that I love:

"I lay my 'whys' before Your cross in worship kneeling,

My mind too numb for thought, my heart beyond all feeling.

And worshipping realize that I, in knowing You,

Don't need a 'why.'"

And as we come to soak our minds in the Word of God led by fundamentally basic taught teachers in the scriptures, then the Holy Spirit will help us to discern what is truth and what is error. And we will have a right conception of God. And when our lives fall apart, we will not turn around and say Your will isn't good, You are not good. We will be able to say You are good, You are perfect, and even this is acceptable even though I cannot understand it. I lay my "whys" before Your cross in worship; I don't need a "why."

So we'll have a right view of God. And then we'll have a right view of ourselves. Self-image is what I see, self-esteem is what I think about what I see. My self-image can be or my identity can be all sorts of things. I can look in the mirror and see an image—that's my self-image in a practical sense. Now, what I think about what I see is my self-esteem.

I remember my daughter looking in the mirror at the age of 13, crying. Tears of rage and hurt and upset. "I'm so ugly," she said. "I'm so ugly. I'm so ugly." She really felt it so deeply; she refused to go to school because she was so ugly. Her image told her one thing—which certainly wasn't ugly—but it told her something, and what she thought about that image was, "I don't like it. I don't like what I see." And her self-esteem was this big. And she wouldn't go to school. I had a terrible job getting her to school through that period. In fact, it wasn't until my daughter's wedding day that I heard her say, "Today I feel good about myself."

Her self-esteem was about that big, and there was all sorts of reasons for that. So the self-image is what we see in someone else's eyes, perhaps. It's what I think about what I see that is my self-esteem. And you know, we're told in this passage of scripture not to be high-minded or conceited. We're not indispensable to God's program. We're not better than our fellow Christians, verse three tells us. There's no medals for gifts, if you like. God has given me gifts; I'm not going to get any medals for the gifts He's given me. I've got to think soberly. I've got to have a right estimation of my gifts and abilities. That doesn't mean I put myself down. If God has given me gifts, then I acknowledge those and have a right estimate of them. I just don't expect any medals for something somebody else has given me. They're His gifts.

But the important thing is: What do You think of me, Lord? Verses four to eight of this chapter, we read about a unique calling and office and ministry. God has trusted me to do something for Him, and it's in that that my self-esteem is found.

You know, when I became a Christian, the blessing as I became a blessing to other people gave me a good self-esteem. I had a bad self-image because I was always looking in other people's eyes to see what they thought of me. What was the image I saw reflected back? And they didn't think much of me, and so that's what I thought about myself. Now, when I came to Christ, I looked into His eyes. And He didn't think much of me either! But He saw the potential and He told me about that. He said, "Thou art Simon, thou shalt be Peter." My second name is Pauline. "Thou art Jill, thou shalt be Pauline." He saw something in me that certainly I never had any idea. And as I looked into His eyes, He loved me as He'd made me and as He saw me and as He would begin to make me after His image, with the potential that He'd put there in the first place.

And so my self-image is in what He thinks of me, not in what other people think of me. And you know, that's come with a renewed mind. And those of you that suffer very dreadfully with a bad estimate of yourself for no good reason at all need to get into the scriptures, need to grow in God, because He will give you a good view of yourself—a good view of Himself and a good view of yourself.

And lastly, He'll give you a good view of other Christians. Verse four through eight talk about the other members of this big body, the body that is the church, the mystical church. It'll give you a good view of other Christians. Do you like other Christians? I mean, really, be honest. Do you like other Christians? Some of us do and some of us don't. And quite honestly, sometimes some Christians are very hard to like or love. And there are a lot of unbelievers that are a lot easier to love than some Christians, and that's very confusing.

I love my friend Ben Hayden's statement. He is a Presbyterian minister, he's a great preacher. He was converted at the age of 30 from a pretty tough background—newspaper man. He went to seminary even when he didn't want to be a preacher. "Even when I went to seminary, I didn't really have the slightest desire to be a pastor," he says. "I was really interested in evangelism. I didn't like Christians." And then he says this: "I think Christians are an acquired taste. You learn to like them." But for me, it didn't come naturally, and it doesn't come naturally. It comes spiritually. And it comes as our mind is renewed and we think God's thoughts because He likes Christians. He really does. He loves us. He's got some weird ones, but He loves us all. And so His love can be lent to me for those that I don't love.

And next we'll be talking about love as we think about giving our heart, our relationships to Him. So in conclusion, what do we do? We think God's thoughts after Him. Get into Philippians 4 and see that whatsoever things are good and pure and noble and right—these are the things you'll find yourself thinking as your mind is renewed. And then the God of peace will garrison your heart and mind—put little soldiers of peace around your mind—no matter what's happening in your world and in your life. What are people looking for? Peace of mind. Peace of mind. That comes from peace with God, or the peace of God, as the Prince of Peace comes to take up residence in our lives.

Let's pray together. Heavenly Father, we pray in these next few moments as our body language says many things. In this quiet moment, we would just absorb what has been said, what has been said to us. Think about it. Yes, really think about it. Amen.