Seeing Yourself Through His Eyes Series

AND – I am also convinced, that what many people do see…

THEY - do not like all that much.

YOU SEE - I agree with what Brennan Manning in the forward of his book, ‘A Glimpse of Jesus’ (yeah, always read the forward to books) - that not liking what we see when we look at ourselves… (something that he calls ‘self-hatred’) is at epidemic proportions in our world today…

QUESTION MGCC…

WHAT - do you see when you look in the mirror?

WHAT - do you see when you look at yourself?

LISTEN - chances are that what you see is distorted.

BUT – remember…

“It’s not you – It’s the mirror”

The next point in your notes is;

II. What It Causes

AND – basically what this distorted image of ourselves causes is shame.

NOW - in my studies for this message I read an awesome book written by Lewis Smedes, called, “Shame & Grace, Healing The Shame We Don’t Deserve.”

(a professor of integrated studies in the graduate school of phycology at Fuller Theological Seminary)

Checkout what he said about shame.

“Shame comes when no one else is looking at you but yourself and what you see is a phony, a coward, a bore, a failure, a dumbbell, a person whose nose is too big and whose legs are too boney, or a mother who is incompetent at mothering and, all in all, a poor dope with little hope of ever being an acceptable human being.

The feeling of shame is about our very selves, not about some bad thing we did or said but about what we are. It tells us that we are unworthy. Totally unworthy.

It is not as if a few seams in the garment of ourselves need stitching; the whole fabric is frayed. We feel that we are unacceptable. And to feel that is a life-wearing heaviness.

Shame-burdened people are the sort who Jesus had in mind when he invited the ‘weary and heavy burdened’ to trade their heaviness for His lightness.”

UNDERSTAND – a lot of people when they look in the mirror; when they take a look at who they are…

FEEL – shame. FEEL – unworthy. FEEL – unacceptable.

AND – they live in fear.

FEAR – that they will be rejected…

FEAR – that they one day will be put on the scales, weighed and found wanting…

NOW IN - a chapter called, ‘A Very Heavy Feeling,’ Smedes lists some feelings, that people have expressed to him and that he has felt himself from time-to-time.

PERHAPS - you have had some of these same feeling about yourself… (I know I have…)

OKAY – so, go ahead right now and take a look at yourself…

What do you see?

How – did you feel about what you see?

OKAY - here’s Smedes list…

• I sometimes feel as if I’m a fake

• I feel if people who admire me really knew me they might have contempt for me

• I feel inadequate; I seldom feel as if I am up to what is expected of me

• When I look inside myself, I seldom feel any joy at what I am

• I feel inferior to the really good people that I know

• I feel as if God must be disgusted at me.

• I feel flawed inside, blemished somehow, dirty sometimes

• I feel as if I just cannot measure up to what I ought to be.

• I feel as if I will never be acceptable.

UNDERSTAND – when we persistently feel any of the feelings that are expressed in this list (or feelings like them) what we are feeling is shame.