We live in a world where image is everything.

 

A few years ago, Real Madrid purchased the star player David Beckham from Manchester United for 41 million dollars. And now, Beckham has signed a $320 million, five-year deal to play for the Los Angeles Galaxy. He is a good footballer, but not that good. The team did not acquire him for his playing ability; all that money is about image, about fan appeal. Beckham has value as a celebrity, for his name recognition; he will sell a lot of replica jerseys. He will be paid over a million dollars a week for his image.

 

China has warned image-conscious citizens against the use of a rack to lengthen their legs—this, after several such operations has gone badly wrong. The operation involves breaking a patient's legs and then stretching them on a rack. This has become very popular among young professionals who are obsessed with gaining any height in the country's height-conscious society.

 

Pascal Dangin, the chief executive of Box Studios, is a master of the airbrush. A lot of celebrities depend on him and won't print a picture without him. They shell out thousands of dollars a year for his services. He's arguably one of the most powerful men in fashion, but he doesn't sit in the front row or wear designer clothes; he controls the quality of the cover photos of his clients.

 

Dangin has a clear-eyed view of the reality of this age, pointing out that the line between what is in bounds and what is out is a moving one in the digital age. Grabbing a printout from a recent Yves Saint Laurent ad campaign, Mr. Dangin shrugs, "This world is not reality," he says, fingering the print. "It's just paper."

 

He explains, "Hey, everybody wants to look good. Basically we're selling a product—we're selling an image. To those who say, 'Too much retouching,' I say, 'You are bogus.' This is the world that we're living in. Everything is glorified. I say live in your time."

 

It is evident that this is a disease of the world that has invaded the church. For those of us in ministry, the temptation is to present a glittering image of personal piety that fails to reflect the true condition of our souls, masking a conflicted self of divided loyalties. But Jesus reserved his harshest words for Pharisees, whom he described as tombs with whitewashed walls, but inside they are full of dead men’s bones.

 

Thomas Merton observed, “Every one of us is shadowed by an illusory person: a false self. My false and private self is the one who wants to exist outside the reach of God’s will and God’s love—outside of reality and outside of life. And such a self cannot help but be an illusion.” Merton states, “The great tragedy of our age is the fact, if one may dare to say it, that there are so many godless Christians—Christians, that is, whose religion is a matter of pure conformism and expediency. A life devoted to the cult of this shadow is what is called a life of sin.”

 

Brennan Manning called the false self the “imposter.” “For many years,” he says, “I hid from my true self through my performance in ministry. I constructed an identity through sermons, books, and storytelling. I rationalized that if the majority of Christians thought well of me, there was nothing wrong with me. The more I invested in ministerial success, the more real the impostor became.” . . . “The false self causes us to live in a world of delusion. The imposter is a liar.”

 

A pastor’s wife once told me, “There is a part of my husband that no one knows anything about.”

 

Jesus warned, "Be careful not to do your ‘acts of righteousness’ before men, to be seen by them." (Mt 6:1) In that passage, Jesus teaches that it’s not about ritual, or riches, it’s about righteousness. And so he exhorts us to give anonymously, pray secretly, practice spiritual disciplines privately, and invest eternally. Jesus knew that true public victory is always preceded by private victory.

 

C.I. Scofield once said, "If you want to know about a man, don't look at his Bible; look at his check book."

 

The Apostle Paul revealed his commitment to evict the imposter in his second letter to the Corinthian church: “Therefore, since through God’s mercy we have this ministry, we do not lose heart. Rather, we have renounced secret and shameful ways; we do not use deception, nor do we distort the word of God. On the contrary, by setting forth the truth plainly we commend ourselves to every man’s conscience in the sight of God.” (2 Co 4:1-2)

 

The apostle knew that authenticity in the Christian experience could only be found as the false self is replaced by the reality of the indwelling Lord. He thus made it the goal of his ministry to labor “until Christ is formed in you.” (Gal 4:19)

 

It’s all about righteousness, not appearances, the hidden person of the heart.

 

Pastor Steve Stroop is a man of God who is committed to transparency in ministry. A gifted leader and communicator, he is the senior pastor at Lake Pointe Church, a fellowship of about 5,000 people in Rockwall, Texas. He is not flashy and he preaches in a conversational style; he doesn't shout, but there is a quiet power in his messages. I heard him preach one Sunday just after he had returned from vacation. He said that his administrative assistant gave him a letter that came while he was gone. It was a two-page, single-spaced letter criticizing him and the church, and the writer of the letter said that he had left Lake Pointe and was looking for another church.

 

He told us that his assistant said, "I almost didn't give this to you; I don't agree with it." Stroop said, "I didn’t' agree with it either." And everybody in the congregation laughed.

 

But he went on to explain, “I didn't agree with it because it wasn't bad enough.” He said, “The truth is, that man doesn't know half of my weaknesses. And he doesn't know half the mistakes we make around here. He doesn't know how often I fail. The letter wasn't bad enough. And, the sad thing is, he is out there looking for a church that doesn't exist.”

 

It is that kind of transparency, genuineness, and humility that gives God the freedom to show himself strong on our behalf. As we consider the call to authenticity in life and ministry, we would do well to remember the words of Second Chronicles 16:9: “For the eyes of the LORD move to and fro throughout the earth that he may strongly support those whose heart is completely his.”