Deuteronomy 6:5 And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might.

I ran cross country in high school. I wasn’t in the top five so I didn’t letter, but I ran. A friend who had been on our team the year before moved and that year competed. He was there rabbit. The guy who sprinted as hard as he could at the first of the race to draw out our runners to keep up and sap their energy. It didn’t work.

At the end of the race I came to the field where we finished the race and I could see him fifty yards in front of me with a hundred yards to go. All I could think of was beating him, so I sprinted that last hundred yards and beat him. My coach came up to me and said, “If you had given your all in the race, you wouldn’t have had that sprint in you.”

Now at this time in my life I feel that way in service to my Lord. I came late to the table, as they say. I can see the finish line and I have plenty of sprint left in me. But it occurs to me also that my witness to sinners is more true than those who have served since an early age. I have more sin experience, I know whereof they speak, I can relate.

Luke 7:47 Wherefore I say unto thee, Her sins, which are many, are forgiven; for she loved much: but to whom little is forgiven, the same loveth little.

I can relate.

Exodus 20:4a Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image

Publicist are all about creating and maintaining image. That is their job. I am not about to attack those who look upon those images. That isn’t the point for this devotional.

The focus of this verse has always been about the idol, has it not? What I would like to focus on is the creator of the image, the publicist. After all we are trying to sell product here and one should not blame the product for the ad campaign. The product isn’t the one selling you a bill of goods are they? Isn’t the product good enough to stand on its own merit?

OK, so we do not have a publicist we have hired. Do we do that job ourselves? Have we created an image with our own hands? Are we trying to put on a face because we know what we really are and we are afraid that no one will like us? Either way, from a publicist or self-promoted, the real you is going to start acting out. Public figures have their image destroyed on television and in print. The rest of us do it in front of friends and family. For all of us, there is only one solution.

Romans 8:29 For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren.

It is if the crafting of our image is not done by human hands, but by the power the Holy Spirit according to the will of God. True satisfaction is found in knowing who you are in Christ.