Distortion is what happens when something no longer reflects what it was created to be, and we can spend years adapting to that warped reflection if we never learn the original. We go back to Genesis, look at Jesus as the perfect image of God, and name how anxiety, addiction, shame, and fear try to become identities we were never meant to carry.
• distortion explained through the carnival mirror image and the danger of never seeing the original
• Genesis 1:26–27 as the starting point for identity before rules or performance
• sin reframed as the twisting of something originally good rather than a new identity
• pride as distorted confidence and lust as distorted love and greed as distorted stewardship
• the enemy as a distorter of truth rather than a creator of anything new
• “If I don’t know the original, I’ll spend my whole life adapting to the distortion” applied to addiction and anxiety and depression
• religion as a warped mirror that teaches unworthiness instead of restored sonship
• Jesus as the blueprint for fully alive humanity and the image of the invisible God
• transformation as waking up from glory to glory into the same image
• speaking to identity and starving the lie so distorted patterns lose power
Get out of your feelings and get back to church.