(For the record, just because I’m posting this video doesn’t mean I’m necessarily endorsing the site at the end or the campaign. I don’t think it’s bad, just haven’t checked it out to see exactly what all they are promoting or encouraging.)

Some of you may have already seen this or something like it, but it really made me sad to see what the Madison Avenue-ites are doing to both men and womens’ perception of humanity via all forms of entertainment and marketing. Everyone knows this is going on, but the video makes the difference between knowing about something that is going on and experiencing it, feeling it in your heart.

This represents a behind the scenes snapshot of what we are bombarded with everyday on television, in magazines, on billboards, that really gives us all a skewed perception of the reality of our looks. The fact of the matter is, most people (including myself) just look average. And guess what? That’s okay! That is exactly how God intended it by His good design and pleasure, for His own glory.

To attempt to alter ourselves (on all kinds of fronts, though there are certainly exceptions to be sure) shows 1) how much we try to make exhibitions of ourselves to everyone, as if we are the very people the media projects to our minds, the centers of our universe; and 2) how much we are willing to rebel against Christ’s lordship, instead of humbly submitting to what He has sovereignly ordained for our lives. We covet after the images we are presented (guys and girls, though in different ways), thus committing idolatry (looking to something besides Christ to give us ultimate, final meaning ). And then we deceive ourselves into thinking we are those very people or that we must go to great lengths to be them, or for many guys, find them. So sad.

As far as men are concerned, these images present to us a skewed picture of what the ideal woman looks like. Instead of pursuing to know a woman’s heart as it is in Christ, we are looking for that girl in the photos, who by the way, doesn’t exist remember. These faux images cause us to lust after them and thus we deceive ourselves into thinking 1) we must find a girl like that (which will become an ultimate pursuit, instead of Christ), and 2) that if we don’t find a girl like that, we must be “settling”. That is so distorted and injures God’s glory and our own perception of true beauty, which lies in a heart transformed by grace alone.

This video really struck an emotional chord in my heart while watching it because it shows that despite the freedoms we have in our society to “express” ourselves however we want, we are completely enslaved when it comes to the sins we are comfortable with. Despite our pursuit of the imaginary person out there in those photos, our hearts are black as a result of exchanging the glory of God for much lesser things, like the imaginary people we are pushed to aspire to, via the media and peer pressure resulting from a society that has bought all of this nonsense hook, line and sinker. And the problem is we are completely blind to it all at the same time. This campaign, though I guess it is done now seeing as how it is 3+ years old now (unsure) and have done no real investigation of the entire thing, is a good start in the secular world to bring us all back down to the reality of our looks, which in reality we should really be content with what God has granted us, satisfied more with His glory and truth than how we look. May God have mercy on me, a sinner.

One commenter on this video (NJtoTX) on Youtube.com made a good point too, since the video is a few years old now: “What’s scary is that the stuff they were doing with Photoshop back then (3+ years ago) is what they are now doing with digital video.” Good point.

Question: what is the professed Christian culture of marketers doing in this regard? Sadly, it’s the exact same thing. Even the world is recognizing the absurdity of these things before we do. Instead of making the Gospel central and basing our lives off of it, being content in God’s design, Christian marketers, many of whom are owned and run by secular media outlets now, are catering to the very idols causing so much destruction in our society. May we repent of this, believe once again in Christ’s saving and changing power, and return to God’s truth in His Word.