A New Self-image

Romans 12:3-5

Don’t think you are better than you really are. Be honest in your evaluation of yourselves, measuring yourselves by the faith God has given us. (Romans 12:3)

THE ROMAN CHURCH SEEMS to have been divided. Jewish believers who had led the church but were exiled from Rome around AD 49 (Acts 18:2) returned to find their leadership unwelcomed. Gentile Christians, who led the church in their absence, may have seen themselves as the new chosen people, while Jewish believers prided themselves on their long history as God’s original chosen ones. When Paul warned the congregation’s members not to see themselves as better than they really were, he was likely addressing this sense of superiority as well as their tendency to rank spiritual gifts in a hierarchy of importance. In any case, Paul says, their true worship of God—as living sacrifices offered in gratitude—should lead them to honest self-perception.

We can take Paul’s instructions in the other direction to address another problem many of us have: seeing ourselves through eyes of guilt and shame, listening to voices from the past that remind us of how we’ve messed up, or believing voices about the future that hint at the inevitability of disappointment. Just as we should never exaggerate our own self-image, neither should we minimize it. One attitude offends those around us; the other fails to share the extravagant love of God with them. We are to measure ourselves with God-given faith because we are to see ourselves as God sees us.

That’s the bottom line. Any self-image that is more or less than who we really are is essentially disagreement with God. On one hand, you are only one of many people extravagantly loved by God, which gives you no basis for elevating yourself above them. On the other hand, you are loved beyond your wildest imagination, which gives you no basis for minimizing your own gifts and value. Those around you need to see the love of God for you, and they need to see it coming through you. A true self-perception enables you to embody both.

{Father, it is much easier for me to believe in your love for others than to believe in your love for me. Show me how you see me. Then show me how you see others. Enlighten me to live in a way that treasures all of us the way you do. Amen.