Live Free with Josh Howerton - Mugged by the Mirror | Ep. 96 | Monday June 19, 2023

Episode Date: June 19, 2023

Our obsession with our physical appearance has led to an identity crisis. Culture glorifies images that are unattainable and unhealthy to strive for. Pastor Mike teaches how to replace these lies of the enemy with the truth of God. As Christians, we don't have to live up to these unhealthy standards, but we can rest in our God-given identity. For more information, visit lakepointe.church/dailydrive

Thanks for tuning in to today's Daily Drive with Lake Point Church, a daily dose of God's Word for your morning drive. When the word, not the world, becomes the majority of your week, your life will start to change. For that reason, our prayer is that God will speak to you through today's devotional. For more digital content to feed your faith, visit lakepoint.comit. And now let's dive in to today's devotional. A welcome to the Daily Drive podcast. For you it might be the daily workout podcast or the daily push-a-stroller podcast or the daily hang-by-the-pool podcast. So wherever you are, however you're listening, so grateful that you would hang for us just a few minutes every day.

And we're spending some time this summer talking about identity theft, how the enemy of our soul uses some big-time lies to hack into our soul and create all kinds of insecurities about who we are. Your identity in mind can get robbed by relationships and hijacked by hate and stolen by success and fleeced by our feelings and plundered by the past I mean, I could go on and on. But have you ever been mugged by the mirror or scammed by the scale? I have a friend, a really funny guy just a normal dude

that used to look in the mirror every day and say, man, I can't wait till tomorrow because I get better looking every day. So what do you see when you look in one of those things? Do you say like the queen and snow white mirror, mirror, mirror on the wall. Who's the fairest of them all? I mean, what do you see when you look at one of those?

Ever, ever been to a workout place, a health club, and they got mirrors everywhere. And I think we have a responsibility to take care of our bodies. But have you ever been standing there and you're looking at your body and you've got your 15 pound dumbbells and you're curling? And you're going, dang, I am ripped. And then another guy walks up with biceps the size of your thighs and grabs a hundred pound dumbbell and you go,

Dang, I'm ripped off. And all of a sudden, your joy, your confidence, your worth, your good feelings about your progress, your identity, it gets mugged by the mirror. In our culture for a long time, we have been obsessed with how we look. I mean, we nip and tuck and liposuck, we freeze and tease and tweez. I heard one lady say she said so many facelifts that the dimple in her chin is actually her navel. Just pulling all that skin up. but we are obsessed with our physical image, and because of it, I think we're in an identity crisis. We have bought into the lie that says our value is directly proportionate to our physical attractiveness.

The lie that says, look in a certain way, being beautiful and buff means being happy. It means being admired, respected, love, and accept that, man, if I could just look like that, guys will want me, or girls will want me, or employers will hire me, or friends will want to be with me. Well, friends will want to be me. And that lie, yes, lie, gets reinforced in everyday life. I ran across something and asked if brands were really honest with their slogans, what some of these might say. You might have seen some of these before.

They were pretty funny to me. Like WebMD, the tagline, convince yourself you have a terminal illness. Or frosted flakes. They're, okay, that's honest, right? Or Chick-fil-A. You'll crave us on Sundays, right? Akiah, we throw in extra parts just to mess with you. I love this in Motel 6.

We'll leave the light on for you, because you're probably in a sketchy neighborhood. And just one more. Victoria's Secret. Lowering Women's Self-Eesteem since 1977. Michelle Graham wrote a insightful, funny, honest, helpful book for women. In her book, she talks about how in 1959 a new kid arrived on the block and became the cultural icon of what every little girl needed to grow up and look like. Any clue who that might be?

Yep, Barbie. And she writes about how that image mess with her all throughout middle school and high school as she matured. And she writes this, as I grew into adulthood. I left my Barbie behind. Unfortunately, I struggle with the belief that unless I am physically perfect, a perfection that is unattainable and unrealistic, I'm somehow not as valuable as everybody else. Barbie moved out, but Victoria moved in.

I was reading about a study by Groupon that revealed that American women routinely spent an average of $3,756 a year on their appearance, which adds up to $225,000 throughout their entire lifetime. And men were far behind, spending an average of $2,900 per year, totaling $175,000 throughout their lifetime. In this country, we spend $20 billion a year on cosmetic. $2 billion on hair care products. I've been on a personal 20-year boycott of that stuff. We spend $74 billion on diet foods. And of course, now we have apps with all kinds of filters

so you can take and post that perfect selfie. Professionals are paid big bucks to make the stars and models look amazing. There is duct tape and strategic hidden spots. Almost every image is Photoshopped or filtered in some way, and the result is a completely phony image. Most of us can't possibly come close to these images. Genetically, our bodies can't do it, and in many cases it would not be healthy to try. But unfortunately, that lie gets reinforced every day, and many are literally dying,

trying to fit that image. And, gang, this whole thing seems so, and I'm not exaggerating here, it's this seems so sinister to me, and it should, because it's the plan of the enemy of our soul, the original identity thief to distort our image and the image of God and hack into our identity. Remember Jesus called in the Father of Lies and told us that the original identity thief comes only to steal, kill, and destroy.

And Jesus said, I've come, that you may have life and have it to the full. You know, this whole image distortion thing got started a long time ago when the thief hacked his way into a garden called Eden. The story is contained in the first book of the Bible in the Old Testament of the book of Genesis where God said, let us make people

in our image to be like ourselves. And they'll be masters of all of life. So God created men and women in his own image. He looked over all that he made, and he saw that it was excellent in every way. Then enter the original hacker in Genesis Chapter 3 is what it says. Now, the serpent was more crafty

than any of the wild animals the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, did God really say, you must not eat from any tree in the garden? I mean, come on, did God really say that? Did God really say he loves you? Did God really say you're accepted the way you are? Did God really say that you are excellent in every way

that you're the apple of his eye? Come on. There's so much more. Look at you. Can't you see that God's holding out on you? Well, the woman said to the serpent, we may eat the fruit from the trees in the garden, but God did say you must not eat fruit from the tree

that's in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die. Oh, please. Did God say that? Did God say that? That's just like him. He is on such a big ego trip. You will not die, the serpent said of the woman, for God knows that when you eat of it, your eyes will be open, and you'll be like God, knowing good and evil. Adam and Eve looked at each other and said, yeah, you know what? He's right. God's holding out of us. That's not fair.

And they bought the lie, and they picked the fruit, and they shattered the image. And the thief slithered away satisfied, and we are all left feeling defective, less than, searching for fig leaves to cover up, and trying to put all the pieces back together. And so we go through life, looking at a distorted image, unsatisfied with being created in the image of God. We strive to create for ourselves another image, one that just pulls us further and further away from God, further away from the truth and the unfailing love that we crave. And we just keep buying the lie. And we pass along this lie like a really bad strain of the flu.

I mean, research shows that feelings about body image start very early, long before the media plays a significant role in a little girl or little boy's life. Ira Sacker, co-author of Dying to Be Thin, writes this, Some of my patients who were just out of nursery school, that blew me away. Some of my patients who are just out of nursery school tell me that they're fat. Turns out that their moms are saying the same thing about themselves.

I saved this email a few years back. The person who sent it to me gave me permission to share it. And this is what she wrote. Dear Mike, when I was in my very early 20s, I got married. At the time I was 5'5 foot, 6, 115 pounds. Two years later, I remember my husband was saying,

if I don't want you, nobody will. And he threw me down a flight of stairs, and we got divorced. I started to make myself throw up any time I ate too much or felt like I was gaining weight. I went to about 105 pounds. There were times when my chest hurt

so bad from throwing up and exercising so much that I finally decided to stop throwing up. I went almost two years barely ever doing it. I remarried, had another child, and even after my baby, and my weight came off and I stabilized it 115, 118 pounds.

I was really okay with it. A couple of years ago, I took some medicine which caused me to gain 18 pounds just over 10 weeks. Even after changing my medicine, I didn't lose the weight. I have dieted, I walk, I tried all kinds of healthy ways to lose weight, and it just hasn't happened. I feel horrible about it. In fact, in the last six months, I gained five more pounds. Well, yesterday, my dad came to visit. He's been here four times in eight years. He walked up to me.

Put his hand across my waist and said, what happened to my skinny little girl? Where did that pretty little skinny girl go? You have gotten so big. I broke in the tears. In fact, I just keep crying. I feel so wounded and hurt all over again. I'd love to stick my finger straight down my throat. He said he didn't mean to make me cry, and assured that I'll be able to lose the weight.

I hate the way I look, and it makes me feel disgusted and deeply sad. And I know it isn't supposed to be important, but I can't let go of it. I know other things are so much more important, like AIDS and war and trafficking and poverty. I'm sorry this is so petty, but I need to know, does God care about all this?

Well, the answer is yes. So let me ask you, what if the words of an insensitive dad or an insecure mom or a screwed up culture were replaced with the loving words from your Heavenly Father? What if the lies of the thief were replaced with the truth of God? Would that make a difference for you? I'm praying it will. In our next episode, I want to start giving you for the sake of our topic some victorious secrets. Sorry.

tomorrow and we'll start unpacking a strategy to defeat the mirror and the scale and this phony ideal that the enemy puts in front of us. And I'm praying it will be super helpful to many of you. See you tomorrow. Thanks for tuning in today. For more biblical teaching and worship, join us for our church online live weekend services on Saturdays at 6 p.m. and Sundays at 9.30 and 11 a.m. Central Standard Time. Also, if this podcast was helpful to you, would you be sure to rate, review, and share this podcast to help get the word out. For more information about all digital ministries of Lake Point, visit lakepoint.compt.combe.combe. Church slash daily drive.