Most of us are pretty careful about displaying photographs of ourselves, and the last thing we want people to see is our passport photo. Yet we also carry another picture within ourselves – one far more important than any photograph. It’s the mental image we have of ourselves. For many of us it’s like a passport photo, and we don’t like it.

But, more than anything else, the one theme that dominates the New Testament is God’s lovingkindness and acceptance of us, something we could never earn for ourselves, but which is given to us freely out of God’s eternal love. And that is the basis of a healthy self-image – seeing myself as God sees me; and being committed to that reality. Jesus came to put right what had been made wrong. Through him we reconciled to God. Through his Spirit within us we are being transformed to what God created us to be.