Low self esteem is a chronic disease in our society – particularly among women. Don’t believe me? How many people cringe when they see themselves sin a photo? The reality is, very few people are delighted with who they are

Awesome week this week, and in fact next week on the program as well; I’m joined today by Dr Barry Chant who’s just released his latest book, “Living In The Image Of God”.

Now Barry’s one of the giants on whose shoulders I’ve had the privilege to stand, one of my lecturers and teachers at Bible college and a man through whom God has taught me so much.

One of his passions, one of the things I’ve heard him speak about over and over and over again is this whole idea of living our lives in the image of God. Most people who believe in Jesus kind of know that we’re made in the image of God but how often are we actually living our lives as though we are, living our lives IN the image of God.

This life here on earth ain’t a dress rehearsal, we have one life to live here in this place, in this age and it would be such a senseless waste to squander it. Barry welcome to the program.

Barry: Thanks Berni, great to be with you.

Berni: Now this whole concept of living creatively, living in the image of God, it’s not a new one in your life is it? I mean in fact as I read the book it came to you quite a few years ago through a presentation from one of your students. Can you tell us a bit about that?

Barry: To go back even before that I remember talking to an older minister on one occasion, he taught me how someone in his congregation has asked him, “What does it mean to be made in Gods image?” And I sat there thinking I’m glad he didn’t ask me because I had no idea at that time.

But then yes, teaching at Bible College and I had students doing little short talks, learning public speaking and one young woman gave a talk on Genesis chapter 1 about being made in God’s image. And she said this means being made as a person who’s creative because of course at that stage in Genesis 1 there’s the story of God creating the heavens and the earth and I thought, “Now there’s an idea”. And really from that I began to think about it.

The other thing that happened, once we had a number of young people who had come really off the streets into Bible College, they were brand new Christians. They had come to know Christ, they had a very genuine faith in Him and their lives had been changed but their habits hadn’t quite caught up with them.

They had been squatting in other people’s houses, they were sleeping until midday and staying up until four in the morning and on drugs and cigarettes and everything, and they were untidy and they didn’t know the first thing about just how to live an ordinary life.

And I began to put those two things together and I thought, “We understand who God is and we’re made in His image, that gives us a model, a concept and more than that it gives us a power to have our lives turned right around and to live positively and live in a way that actually looks a bit like God.’

Berni: Yeah, because you read Genesis chapter 1 – and I remember doing this exercise in one of your classes a lot of years ago now – and if you knew nothing else about God other than what Genesis 1 tells you, you discover an incredibly creative God.

Barry: We do and I’m impressed that you remember after all those years.

Berni: See some stuff stuck.

Barry: I say to students, lets imagine that you’ve never read the Bible before. You know nothing about God, all you’ve read is these first twenty six, twenty seven verses. There you see that God says:

Let’s make human beings in our image.

Okay so then you’ve got to go back and say, “Who is this God that says this and what is His image?” In the classroom people come up with all sorts of wonderful ideas about that but some things really stand out. One is, God is the creator and creative and of course behind that lies all sorts of things like, “He’s clearly therefore a person who can think and who can design and who can plan, who can organise, that’s all part of that”.

Then of course He has power to do it and then He goes on to tell human beings that they should exercise mastery over the earth. So mastery, self control, that’s another thing. And then because God is spirit, because the same passage tells us that, living in His image means developing our spirituality.

And then it also means that when we understand that we’re made in God’s image then we have a real sense of identity, of who we are because many people tell us we’re sort of made or developed in the image of maybe some primeval amoeba or something which doesn’t do a lot for one’s self esteem.

Berni: Well let me ask you that, the whole issue of understanding identity, how many people do you think really understand this whole issue of identity, of being made in the image of God? Do we really get it?

Barry: Well you said before that a lot of people have very poor self esteem. Of course some have the other problem, they have extreme self esteem where they have a very inflated idea of who they are. And somewhere between those two extremes is a balanced view that says, to be realistic I am very well aware of my own faults, I know that I fail regularly; I also know that I’m a person of great potential.

I think understanding that you’re made in God’s image helps you to realise there is a potential there. And somehow it’s important to tap into that and to know how can I develop the potential that is there because even though I have sinned and even though I’ve failed I haven’t lost everything and I’m not a total wipe-out. There’s still a lot there that still reflects that image of God within me and so that then becomes a motivation of how to live. To say, okay I want to live my life so that it does reflect God like any other image, like a mirror image which reflects who God is.

Berni: And that sense of potential, if people get a hold of that that would be transforming wouldn’t it?

Barry: Undoubtedly and that’s really what my book’s about. It’s about transforming life through understanding what it means to be made in God’s image. But not just understanding, there’s also a faith factor. Maybe we can talk about that later but the faith factor means, it’s not just I want to develop the potential but by faith in God I can develop it and I can become a new person. I can live a different sort of life by faith.

Berni: Because we’re made in Gods image.

Barry: Yeah and that’s the point a lot of people miss because, I mean the fact is most religions as you know, the idea is if you want to be like God, even more if you want to get to heaven and you want to have eternal life or a better life next time round or something, you’ve got to pay money, you’ve got to pray a lot, you’ve got to do good works, you’ve got to do extra penance. Extreme things like I saw in China, Tibetan people prostrating themselves on the ground every metre and going for miles up and down on their faces and thinking every time they prostrate themselves it’s one more step nearer God.

And most people, most religions think like that but the Bible teaches us it’s the other way round, that we don’t become like God by what we do, we become like God because of what He did through His Son Jesus Christ. And it’s not our works that always lets us down but it’s His work that never lets us down that transforms us. And so having a sense of proper identity, knowing who we are that comes out of faith in what God has done not in what we do, there’s a big difference.

Berni: For we are Gods workmanship.

Barry: Yes.

Berni: Created in Christ Jesus to do …

Barry: You did learn a lot.

Berni: I did, you couldn’t graduate from Barry’s class with learning Ephesians chapter 2, verse 10:

For we are Gods workmanship created in Christ Jesus to do the good works that he prepared beforehand for us to walk into.

Barry there’s someone listening today who’s struggling totally with their sense of worth and future and hope and destiny and identity, they’ve been listening to you today but they just can’t imagine that it’s all for them. What do you have to say to that person specifically?

Barry: Well it is all for them, that’s the answer. It is all for them because Christ died for everyone. He died for you, He died for me, He died for the whole world and He died in order that our past might be forgiven but that our future might be filled with hope.

There’s two sides to it, there are plenty of people who understand the need forgiveness for the past but they don’t understand that that implies also power to overcome sin in the future. The reality is there’s no sin that can’t be forgiven, there’s no sin that can’t be overcome.

There’s no weakness that can’t be dealt with, there’s no problem that is too hard for God to solve, there’s no difficulty too much for Him, He can handle it all. What we need to do is trust Him and put our faith in Him. We do that because Jesus died for us and because He died on the cross and because He rose again, then we know then that it can happen. It’s possible because God has shown His love for us through Jesus.

Berni: Absolutely. Barry it’s fantastic, thanks for the time today.

Barry: It’s been a pleasure Berni.

The psychologists talk about self-image, self-esteem. But the reason so many people struggle in this area is that they’re measure of who they are, or, more importantly who they think they ought to be, is inaccurate. It’s distorted. What if there was a different way of figuring out who we really are?

A lot of people seem to struggle with their self image or their self esteem. You hear people talking about having low self esteem. It’s this sense that I’m not worth anything, I’m not as good as the next guy, I’m never going to be as good as the next guy.

And there have been times in my life when I’ve struggled with that too. I distinctly remember in my younger years when I was becoming an accomplished pianist, a musician and all my mates were into sports and football in this sports mad nation in which I live.

I felt so worthless. They could run and jump and kick a ball and catch a ball, hey I wasn’t good at any of those things, never have been. You can imagine the jibes and the ridicule. It only got worse when I joined the army and found that I couldn’t run as fast or as far as everyone else. Something for which I was almost kicked out of the Australian army officer training academy only months before graduating at the end of four years.

I remember this desire to be like everyone else, to be good at the things they were good at, and because I wasn’t I felt worthless. I’m joined again today on the program by my very special guest Barry Chant and this whole thing of self image is something he tackles in his latest book, “Living In the Image Of God”.

Berni: Barry welcome again to the program.

Barry: Thanks Berni, great to be with you.

b Do you think that half the problem here is that the ideal image that the world dishes up, the thing that we should be, is kind of idealised stereotype of who we should be or what the world wants us to be is distorted?

Barry: Oh yeah, there’s no doubt about that. In fact my local newspaper has published this very interesting photograph of three models on the beach at Cronulla when they were sort of “off duty”. And the photo hadn’t been touched up and they did not look like models, they looked … there was a bit of a spare tyre around the waist of one of them and the other one’s looking a bit flabby.

And you realise that before the photo usually goes to the public there’s a bit of doctoring airbrushing goes on to make them beautiful and ideal. And of course that’s how it is in the world. Everybody’s image or the public image is portrayed as one of the ideal perfect body or the perfect mind or the perfect whatever.

Berni: Healthy, wealthy and wise.

Barry: Yeah, so you’ve got this kind of a, this image of what the ideal person is like. And just by the way that’s one of the big problems with pornography because it does the same thing. It presents men and woman who are simply unreal and the women never get sick, they never have children, they always have a perfect figure, they never get tired and because the average bloke’s got a wife who isn’t like that. She’s a beautiful person but she’s got kids and she’s got a house to look after and she can’t live like that.

So there’s kind of this false ideal but having said all that there is a positive ideal of the fact that whether we are beautiful physically or whether we’re rich or what nevertheless we can still be beautiful in an ideal sense and we can still be wholesome and well and make a very good contribution to society, if we have an idea of what a good image really is.

Berni: Okay well let’s talk about that. In your book in tackling this whole self image thing you talk about developing a “faith image”. Now I have to tell you, that’s a term that most people wouldn’t have heard of before. What do you mean by a “faith image”?

Barry: Well the term self image is very common but the problem with having a good self image is you’ve got to start with a good self.

Berni: Well I’m okay Barry, what about you? (Both laugh)

Barry: And in our honest moments most of us realise that our self isn’t all that good if we have a really good look at us, I’m just talking about people generally. We all know we’ve let somebody down, we’ve lost our temper, we’ve harboured bitterness in our hearts, we’ve been lustful, we’ve been selfish or we’ve told lies. We look back we know that really ourselves are not that hot and so having a good self image is pretty difficult if you’re honest with yourself, if you know your self isn’t the ideal.

So the term “faith image” is one I actually picked up from an American evangelist, Mr Roberts, who died three or four years ago and had a very big ministry in America. He used to use the term and I’ve kind of borrowed it from him which I have acknowledged in the book.

What he’s saying is if I look at myself as I am I’m never going to have a good self image but if I look at myself by faith, that’s how I am in Christ and how I can be in Christ. That puts a very different thing because I’m looking not in my own heart which is going to find some black spots and makes some very big ones sometimes, but I’m looking at Christ and His goodness and His perfection, His great love, the fact that He died for us, the fact that He was buried and rose again for us.

Look at all that and the fact that He lives forever today and by His Holy Spirit which can change us, then I think wow, there is hope for me after all. I can be a new person; I can be different. And so by faith I see myself in that light instead and that just changes everything.

So when I face difficulties and I feel like maybe I’m going to go under again I say, “Hang on, by faith I can do this, by faith I’m a person who can overcome this”. And so the world might look at me as a failure but I say, “By faith I’m a success”. And the world might say I’m not able to contribute very much and I say, “By faith I can contribute something significant”. I maybe saying, “By faith I don’t have any talent”, and I say, “Too bad, by faith I’m still going to do something good for God and for people”.

So it gives us a whole new motivation but it’s not just motivation because it’s based on a reality that Jesus Christ is real …

Berni: I was going to ask about that, what’s the reality of this faith image? Why isn’t this just double think?

Barry: Well because it’s based on the reality of the fact that the Bible says, when you become a Christian and you put your faith in Christ that His spirit actually lives within you. And so your image now is different because you see yourself not just as you are but as someone who now has the Spirit of God with them.

So something’s happened, you become a new person. So you look at yourself in the mirror you see your physical person there but then you see there’s something more, there’s also the Spirit of Christ within you. And that Spirit of Christ within is what makes the difference and you say, okay by faith now I’m putting my trust in the Spirit of Christ within me to enable me to be the kind of person I really want to be.

This book, “Living In The Image Of God” is a revision of an older book which you may recall, the older book originally was called, “How To Live The Kind Of Life You’ve Always Wanted To Live” which is too long a title anyway. The whole idea was most people want to live a positive good life, they’d love to do that but most of us find we can’t. And so what I try to say in that book was by faith in Christ it is possible, you can live the kind of life your heart really wants you to live and that’s living in the image of God.

Berni: Where does it say that in the Scripture? Where can we find that in Scripture?

Barry: Oh all over the place. Jesus said that for a start, He said:

I came so that you might have life and have it abundantly.

Or live life to the full is another translation. So He specifically said He came to do that, to enable us to live life to the full, to live an abundant life and the Apostle Paul said:

I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.

Look, he’s not talking about making millions of dollars and everything, when he says “all things” he’s actually talking about suffering. But he said, I can cope with it, I can do anything through Christ, I can overcome any problem, I can deal with any set backs through Christ. Again it’s not just mind over matter here, it’s saying, because Christ is real, because His Spirit is real, because His power is within me then I can do these things and I can live a positive, successful, fulfilling life that makes a good contribution.

Berni: Okay just quickly because we’re running out of time, there’s someone listening today who’s really struggling with their self image right now. They’ve heard you talking about this. How do they go about it? How do they lay hold of the faith image?

Barry: Well first of all you’ve got to admit that you’ve made a mess of things and that’s hard to do. A lot of us don’t like to admit that. But if you look at your life really honestly then you say, “Look I have made a mess of things”, it doesn’t take too long to do that. The Bible calls that repentance. You repent of the things you’ve done wrong, you realise they’re wrong, you change the way of thinking and say, “God I really messed that up”.

Second thing is you put your faith in Jesus and just believe what the Bible says about Him and what is historically established – that He was crucified, that He was buried and He did rise again – and you put your faith in the fact that He’s not a dead prophet, He’s not an idol, He’s not some vague philosopher but He’s a living saviour, a living person, the very Son of God who overcame death, who overcame the grave, He’s alive today. By putting your faith in Him you also can live a victorious life.

Berni: Barry thanks for that. Hey listen if you’d like to know more this is all in Barry’s book, it’s called, “Living In The Image Of God” and the easiest way to get a hold of one is go to www.barrychant.com I believe people can buy it there.

Barry: They sure can.

Berni: Barry, thanks for your time today.

Barry: Thanks.

We expect kings and queens to reign over their kingdoms. That’s … as it should be. But do we ourselves, expect to reign over our affairs? Should we expect to reign over our affairs, to reign over our lives? Is that a right expectation, or not? What does God’s Word have to say about all that? Well today, we’re going to find out.

One of the people I follow on Twitter is QueenUK. Of course it’s not really Her Majesty the Queen, at least I hope it’s not. QueenUK is a incredibly irreverent but hilariously funny parody of the monarch and I’m sure Her Majesty would get a great laugh out of it.

One of QueenUK recent twits went something like this. “Reigning nine to five, what a way to make a living”. And I thought that’s really funny. I mean I can’t sing very well but it brings a smile to my face every time I think about it.

And I guess that reigning is something we imagine somehow that a king or a queen does; a sovereign reigning over their kingdom. Reigning is something we imagine God does, reigning over the Kingdom of God – over heaven, over earth, over everything. But do we ever think about us – you and me, us commoners if you like – reigning in life?

I wonder, are we supposed to reign in life or are we supposed to be meek and humble? Isn’t that what Jesus says? Does this idea of reigning over life have a place at all? Barry Chant welcome again today on the program.

Barry: Thanks Berni.

Berni: Barry’s my special guest this week and next talking about some of the powerful Biblical truths about who we are and how we can live our lives. They’re cram packed into his latest book, “Living In The Image Of God”. Barry in your book you start off the chapter on Reigning in Life with a question, “Who calls the tune in your life?” What do you mean by that?

Barry: Well it’s an interesting question, it goes back I think to a similar saying ‘He who pays the piper calls the tune’. An image there I guess goes back to maybe Elizabethan times when you have, say, a banquet and a Lord of the Manor or maybe the king is at the head table up on the platform with all the pewter and crockery and stuff and big roast ducks. And down in the corner is a piper and he’s been told to play “Greensleeves” for example.

But then someone else comes along and he’s got a young lady with him and he wants him to play the young lady’s favourite song. So he says, “Will you play this one?” So the piper changes the song. Then the Baron or the king, he hears this, and he says, “What are you doing? I told you to play so and so?” And he says, “Who pays you? Who feeds you? Who looks after you? I do. You play what I want.” So he who pays the piper calls the tune, that’s what the saying is. The idea there is if someone pays you then that someone is the one who has the authority then to determine what you do.

Well in life we often face situations like that where there are things around us that call the tune. In other words they’re the things we draw satisfaction from, they’re the things that keep us going and so that kind of determines what we do and how we live. And it could be anything. It could be people around us, it could be the society in which we live, could be people’s opinions of us, it could be who does pay us. It could be all manner of things that actually, because we’re receiving these things we somehow feel obliged to live according to those things. Or maybe things within us, the lusts, the desires of our heart, the attitudes we have, all those things, they control us.

The question, who calls the tune is a question saying, “Okay, what controls you? What is it that makes you do what you do? What is it that determines the decisions you make?” And so in my book I’m suggesting that we need to be careful who does that and the best person to call the tune is God because He’s going to lead us to do the right thing and He’s going to enable us to make the right decisions.

You talked about the phrase, “reigning in life” and that’s a Bible phrase, it comes straight out of the Scripture. And that means that instead of life controlling us to determine what we do then we determine what happens around us God helping us. Maybe if I could tell you a brief story here, it’s in the book.

When I was nineteen years of age I had a very serious motorcycle accident. It was very serious. I was on my death bed and it was three days before the doctors gave my family any hope I was going to recover. And I had major surgery, I was having blood transfusions, intravenous feeding, my spine was fractured, my skull was fractured, my arm was fractured, I had serious internal injuries. And I’m lying in the hospital bed, on my death bed really, nobody knowing whether I was going to live or die and one of the cleaners came past.

And I had in my one good hand (because one arm is broke) I had a little New Testament that Vanessa my wife had given to me (my fiancé then) and the cleaner thought I had a prayer book, so she comes past my bed and she says, ‘Will you pray for me?’ And then she goes on her way.

And I thought afterwards, what an amazing situation. Here am I on my death bed and here’s this woman healthy, well and that she asked me to pray for her. And I thought, “Who’s reigning in life?” Although it looked like she was, I was the one that she thought had the answer that she needed. She needed someone to pray for her.

I guess that it’s the kind of thing I’m talking about, that even in the most adverse situation, in the worst possible situation, even there you can still be in control. You can still say, “This thing is not going to control me, it’s not going to determine how I think, it’s not going to determine how I feel, I will still reign in life because I will still make the right decisions under God of how I should react to this.

Berni: How does it match up with being meek and mild, one of the things that Jesus said was:

Blessed are the meek.

Is this idea of reigning in life pride? I mean how do the two fit together?

Barry: Well I think the difference is, I’m not talking about reigning over other people, I’m not talking about becoming Prime Minister or Premier or something, it’s not that kind of authority. It’s a spiritual authority over spiritual issues so I’m not even talking about authority over family or anything like that. Its saying, okay how can I rule over the things that would otherwise rule over me? When Paul uses the phrase in the Bible he’s talking about sin and he says:

Sin has ruled and therefore death has ruled over us until Jesus came.

But through Jesus now our life reigns and we can reign over that. So for example, sins or habits that once we could not stop doing, which we could not control – it could be anything, it could be gross sins like adultery and drunkenness and so on or it could be more subtle ones like pride or like bitterness or resentment or fear or those things, things that once controlled us or things we could not control…

Berni: Nothing subtle over my sin of pride I have to tell you.

Barry: Something where the sin is not obvious to other people but the thing is they are things which can dominate our lives.

Berni: So is the whole idea that God gives us the power to reign over the sin in our lives and the power to control ourselves?

Barry: Yeah, in particular. And so it’s control over sin for a start and the ability to reject sin, to refuse to give in to temptation, the ability to overcome it and also the ability to control other things in a way that means … Say, take alcoholism for example, reigning your life means not that you never drink at all but you never get drunk because you’re in control and you don’t let the alcohol control you, you control it. Or television viewing, it means rather than being glued to the TV screen twenty four hours a day but you decide what you watch and when you watch it because the Lord gives you power to make those sorts of decisions of authority and mastery and control.

Berni: I guess we often don’t think about taking our faith into those areas, like what we watch on television for instance.

Barry: Well we should because that’s an area where discernment is very much needed and control is needed so you don’t just let the TV determine what goes into your brain or what goes into your mind. So for me I say, “I’m going to determine what goes into my mind, my minds like a big …

Berni: … a big sponge that soaks stuff up.”

Barry: That soaks things up and I don’t want rubbish to be going into my mind all the time. And that’s reigning in life. That’s saying ‘I’m not going to let what’s out there determine what comes into my head, I will make that decision and I’ll make that with the help of God. And I make that because I’m a Christian, because I believe that that’s what God wants but also because He enables me to make those sorts of decisions. So that’s reigning in life, its exercising mastery …

Berni: We’re going to take that a bit further tomorrow, we’re going to talk about self mastery a little bit more tomorrow because we’re out of time. Barry thank you for that.

Barry: You’re welcome.

We each have that one chink in our armour, that one sin that keeps coming back. It’s our weak point – our Achilles heal if you will. Well, you know, I’m just going to have to live with that one. Nothing I can do. But that’s not what the Bible teaches us at all.

A while ago in part inspired by some of Barry Chant’s teaching (he’s my special guest on the program this week) I wrote a book called, “Eliminating Stubborn Sin Once And For All”. Barry was one of my lecturers at Bible College, one of the giants on whose shoulders I had the privilege to stand and one of the foundational subjects that he taught me and my fellow students was a subject called, “Creative Living” and he’s developed that a lot more in his latest book, “Living In The Image Of God”.

Now I remember the bit about self mastery in those lectures all those years ago and it’s something that Barry picks up again in his book about living in God’s image.

It seems to me that sin gets a bad wrap these days, people hear that three letter little short word sin and it carries all sorts of religious and social baggage. Sin? Give me a break, who talks about sin these days and yet sin is the central malady of humanity?

Sin is what causes us to miss the whole point of life and so often we feel as though it has victory over us, men caught in pornography addiction, women who can’t help but gossip and complain behind people’s backs, there’s an endless list.

Many people have one or two or maybe three particular sins that seem to have victory over them time and time again and so they just resign themselves to that fact but Barry that’s not what the Bible teaches is it?

Barry: Oh no, it’s certainly not. Just on your point about people being puzzled by the concept of sin or even thinking, “Who talks about sin anymore?” If we’re honest with ourselves and I challenge anyone about this, we would realise that in any given day there are things we do that we wish we hadn’t done.

Things we say, things we’ve thought and if we’re really honest you know that that really wasn’t the sort of person that I’d like to be thought of. So it’s a matter of just really facing up to reality and they might want to call it sin, they might want to call it something else but it is sin.

I often say to people, if you’ve only committed one sin per day would you think you’re doing pretty well? And they say, “Ooh yeah, one a day, that’s pretty good”. Most people do more than that. But if you live to be fifty years old that one sin a day that’s nearly twenty thousand sins for just one sin a day, if it’s ten a day you’re up to two hundred thousand.

So to say, “I’m not a sinner” is really just frankly denying reality. The fact is all of us fail and when you add it all up it amounts to a pretty substantial account. So sin is a real thing and we need to recognise the fact that it has to be dealt with. And the other side of that is, you ask the question, “Why did Jesus die on a cross?” People say, oh He’s a martyr or He was a pavifist or He was a prophet who was unpopular, they have all these theories. But what the Bible teaches bluntly and frankly is that Christ died for our sin.

So sin must be a pretty important thing and a pretty serious issue if God sent His own Son to die for sin but it’s not a trivial issue, you don’t give your Son to die for something trivial, you don’t do that, sin is a serious issue…

Berni: It’s THE issue.

Barry: And it cost the life of God’s Son. So we can’t brush it away and pretend it’s not there, it is there and it needs to be faced.

Berni: Now back in class when you were teaching and I was sitting there as a student I remember in this area you spoke about the three G’s, can you talk to us about the three G’s?

Barry: Yeah it was another phrase I borrowed from someone else but I don’t know where I borrowed it from.

Berni: Leveraging intellectual property. (Both laugh)

Barry: But it’s pretty obvious really, the gold, the girls/guys and the glory. And especially for people in ministry they are big temptation areas. Not so much the gold one, if you want to make money you don’t become a minister, that’s the one thing you don’t do.

Berni: But I guess for all of us that the wealth, success thing is a temptation.

Barry: It is in general sense. I mean, you just look at what happens in election campaigns, everybody talks about the economy, it’s always the big issue because that’s what the whole focus is on. I look in vain sometimes for a politician to get up and say, “I’m going to talk about values”. You don’t hear it, it’s money, money, money. We need money to live, I like having some money. I like to be able to buy food and stuff but it can become a motivation which becomes an end in itself, whether you’re poor or whether you’re rich it makes no difference. Poor people can be just as greedy as rich people and vice versa.

Then of course there’s the sexual issue – the guys and the girls – another major one in our society and you don’t need me to view that or anybody else. You just got to turn on your television or open a magazine or go to the movies and you can see that it’s everywhere. There’s an unhealthy and excessive focus on sexuality but a big temptation area and again we’ve tried to wipe it out because once upon a time people would be ashamed if they were found out that they had had pre marital sex for example, nowadays it’s just taken as the norm.

Berni: Well it’s a lifestyle.

Barry: Yeah so we try to ignore it and try to rename it but it’s still, when you look at reality and couples that are married then one of them is unfaithful, the damage it does to the other party is so obvious, it’s not a little thing to do and you just have to face reality there again too. So you’ve got these things and the glory, in some sense that’s talking about people who want to have their name up in lights but in another sense everybody likes to be thought well of. Somebody who doesn’t like to be thought well of is a strange person.

We all like compliments, we like people to reaffirm us and stroke us I think the word is, we all like that and in the right situation, in the right circumstances none of those things are wrong. Nothing wrong with having money, nothing wrong with getting married and being in love, nothing wrong with being well thought of but again those three things they get out of control they’re destructive.

Berni: So how do we exercise self mastery? I mean God’s given us the choice but so often people struggle, I mean men who are addicted to pornography struggle, so how does mastery hit the road? Where does the rubber hit the road?

Barry: Because a lot of those things happen because they’ve gone so far down the track, you try and stop them before they start really. If you never go to a pornographic website you’re never going to become addicted to it; if you never have a drink you’re never going to become an alcoholic and I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with a single drink but that’s the process. It’s all the same and so that’s the best place to start but unfortunately a lot of people have gone too far, they are caught up in it, well that’s when they need to repent of the sin and recognise that it is sin.

What I said before a lot of people aren’t set free because they don’t recognise that what they’re doing is sin, they call it a health problem for example in the case of alcoholism or it’s how they’ve been brought up or what kind of education they have and we tend to blame anything else except ourselves. So the first step is saying, “Okay I’m the problem, I was the one who did the wrong thing and I’ve got to start with me.”

Berni: Owning the responsibility.

Barry: Yeah got to start with me, own the responsibility and that’s the first thing and then the second thing is turning to God through Jesus Christ and trusting Him to get us out of it which He can do. And He can do it marvellously as many people you know and I know who were formerly involved in all kinds of sin who have been set free from that and lets get away from those sort of more obvious things that everybody talks about. Even a sin like envy or like bitterness, you know to see people who are bitter and angry, release from that by the power of God it’s just a joyful thing to see how the hatred goes and the bitterness goes and suddenly they become people who can reach out and shake your hand or embrace someone who formerly they wouldn’t even talk to.

Berni: To be able to forgive.

Barry: Yeah and this is the Gospel, this is the Good News about Jesus, that when we trust Him He can do it. He can change our lives and from then on we live in that new life, now there’s still responsibility for us, we still have to make sure that we our careful how we live and we don’t obviously deliberately do sinful things but the power is there, the power is there to enable us to do that, that’s the Good News.

Berni: That’s great news. Okay tomorrow, you know what tomorrow’s Friday already, I can’t believe it and we’re going to talk about imagination and creativity, what’s that all about?

One of the things you never hear many sermons on, is using your imagination; engaging your sense of creativity. Why is that? Is it because it’s not in the Bible, or is it because … well, I don’t know, it feels a bit too much like a motivational talk than a message from God.

It’s been a very special week on the program this week because we’ve been joined by Dr Barry Chant who’s just released his latest book, “Living In The Image Of God” and in that book he talks about something that’s profoundly changed my life.

Barry, if you haven’t picked this up earlier this week on the program, was the principle of Tabor College, the Bible College that I attended and he was one of my lecturers a good many years ago now.

And he taught one of the compulsory foundational subjects in my ministry degree called, “Creative Living”. Now let me be honest here, most of the students at the outset considered it a bit of a soft subject, it wasn’t like Old Testament history or Exegesis or one of those real theology subjects, it was about Christian living and so I guess I approached it with less than the rigour and focus that I felt the other subjects demanded.

But week after week we’d go to lectures and we’d talk about living out our lives in the image of God and in particular the role of our imagination and creativity in all of that.

Can I tell you something? I’ve been a Christian now for going on a couple of decades, going to Church week after week and I can honestly say in all that time I’ve never heard anyone else teach on imagination and creativity.

Berni: Barry welcome again to the program today.

Barry: Thank you Berni.

Berni: Hey, why is that? Why don’t we hear much teaching around imagination and creativity in our Churches today?

Barry: I suppose because there’s not enough creativity and imagination to do it, a creative person would teach on it wouldn’t they? I’m sure there is teaching in different places.

Berni: It’s just not one of the main things you hear spoken about.

Barry: No, no, that’s true. Yeah well I can’t answer that question; all I can do is just say I think there’s a strong Biblical theme …

Berni: Let me ask you, where do you get that from?

Barry: Well from Genesis chapter 1 where God says:

Let us make human beings in our image.

The image we have of God at that point is that He is the Creator because the previous verses in Genesis 1 tell us how God created the heavens and the earth and all the marvellous things within them. And you only have to stop and think about what’s in creation, the variety of animal life, of fauna, the variety of vegetation and just the amazing flowers and trees and leaves and insects and everything.

Berni: Just on the side, you know how many species of beetles there are in the world? Three hundred and sixty thousand.

Barry: Really.

Berni: Now if I had been God I would have made maybe one or two, maybe ten, a thousand would have been over the top – three hundred and sixty thousand species of beetles.

Barry: It’s extraordinary isn’t it. Well, even birds there’s something like thirty thousand varieties of birds and nine thousand varieties of bats. Extraordinary! And that’s God’s creativity, some of the things, some of the creatures He created when you look at them, if they were a lot bigger they’d be terrifying and they’re awe inspiring. God is creative, He created some marvellous stuff and so if we are made in His image that means we have, to an extent, a creative power as well.

Now God’s creative power enables Him to make things out of nothing, we can’t do that but we can make things out of something and so all the things He’s given us and human kind has done that, humanity has done that.

Berni: You can see that can’t you?

Barry: Yeah I mean just sitting here today using the electronic equipment that’s all the result of somebody’s imagination and creativity which was a God given ability. But I’m talking about more in terms of just Christian living and I use examples in the book like a marriage that’s become dull and boring, take half an hour, take an hour, sit down in a room with a pen and paper and write down some ideas of how you could put life back in your marriage. The problem is a lot of people don’t even do that, I mean it’s such an obvious thing to do.

Berni: Why don’t we use our imagination as much as we could? What’s the matter with us?

Barry: Sin, it’s part of it. It’s partly that we’ve had the edges taken off the kind of things we could do and could be but I think we get preoccupied with life, preoccupied with responsibilities and also nowadays so much is done for us, so much entertainment. You just go and buy stuff if you want it whereas in previous generations I guess if you wanted something a lot of times you had to make it or you couldn’t have it.

Berni: It’s funny you should say that. I realised recently I love cooking and I realised recently I wasn’t cooking much and what we’ve been doing is buying pre made stuff, so why are we doing this? It costs more money and I don’t get to cook.

Barry: Yeah, that could be multiplied in many aspects of life. My interest is more in the area of just how we can apply that creativity just to every day life, how we can be creative. And so we should be asking God all the time for ideas. See one of the things the Bible talks about is God giving people dreams and visions and in many ways a dream is not just the result of what you had for dinner.

Often it is, but a dream from God is more than just that. It’s a concept, it’s an idea, it’s a message from God if you like, a vision is something like a waking dream where God just drops something into your mind that you’ve never thought of before or haven’t thought of sufficiently before and you think, “Wow, that’s something.”

Berni: Where did that come from?

Barry: Yeah, yeah but it comes from, especially if your heart is open to God but even so God does that sometimes anyway. I mean plenty of stories in recent history of people in other countries who are not Christians and God has appeared to them in dreams of various kinds and it’s turned them to Christ. But again for us, our need is to open our hearts and minds to God and allow Him, invite Him to do that.

Berni: Well you talk in your book about commissioning your imagination, tell me about commissioning my imagination? It’s a great term.

Barry: I’m glad you like it. Well what it means is making up your mind to use your imagination. Don’t let it sleep, wake it up and get it active, get it busy, get it doing things because it’s surprising. I mean, I’m a writer and I’ve got to be careful I don’t impose my standards on other people but I write children’s stories and short stories and sometimes I can sit down at my desk with nothing at all in my mind and in thirty minutes I can have the outline for a story.

Like just recently I wrote three short stories in one day and all I had for each of those stories was just an idea but I sat down and started to scribble some notes, got on the computer. I had to go back over the stories and polish them up and everything but if I hadn’t decided to do it those stories would not exist. So commissioning your imagination means I’m going to sit down and just think and dream and write ideas down.

You don’t use them all but that gets the process going. And go back again to the marriage illustration, while maybe it’s quite a different situation, maybe you can’t get on with your kids or your parents or maybe there’s a situation at work which is difficult or maybe you’re a manager and you think, “What can I do to solve this problem?” And often if we would just take the time to ask God and decide to dream and to think that you’d be surprised at what will come into our lives.

Berni: Just some creative solutions that are straight out of left field.

Barry: Yeah, that’s right, particularly in areas like overcoming temptation, sometimes it’s not just a matter of our own weakness, sometimes we just haven’t stopped to think about some practical things we might do to prevent the temptation.

Berni: Correct.

Barry: There are practical issues like I wrote a book for young people once, I called it, “Straight Talk About Sex”, I just said if you want to keep yourself for marriage then always be where you can be interrupted. It’s a simple bit of advice, it just means don’t go and park your car in a back alley where it’s dark and no one’s ever going to come, park in a street where people are going to walk past all the time. Or if you’re at home don’t lock yourselves away in an upstairs attic but sit in the lounge room. Just be somewhere where you can be interrupted that way that in itself, well if you care about things, will stop you going too far. Just use your imagination to think of some practical ways you can deal with an issue like that.

Berni: I’m a bit worried about you, you’re a pastor and a theologian, you’ve been very practical Barry, it’s just not right is it? (Both laugh)

Barry: Well I just take the attitude Berni if you can’t do it or you can’t be it and then you shouldn’t talk about it.

Berni: Good on you. Well we’re up for this week, that’s it, we’re out of time but you’re going to join me again next week and anyone who’s interested in getting hold of Barry’s latest book, “Living In The Image Of God”, the easiest way is go online, visit www.barrychant.com and you’ll be able to find it right there. We’ll talk again next week Barry.