I'm sure you've heard that old cliché that says, "You can't judge a book by its cover." Well, the fact is, people judge books by their covers all the time!
I've written thirteen books and am working on my next one. Every contract I've signed with various publishers has a clause in it which says something like: "Publisher shall have the right to title or alter the title of the work at any time and have exclusive control of jacket art." In other words, they don't allow me, the author, to determine what the book is titled or what the cover will look like. In fact, they go to great extents to research what the title and cover should be. Do you know why? It's because covers sell books.
When you walk into a bookstore, you have to pick up a book and browse through it before you'll buy it. And it has been proven that the attractiveness of the cover and the title are key factors in getting you to pick up a book. Once you pick it up, hopefully you'll take a look at the content and determine whether it is useful to you. But it could have great content and you'd never know it if the cover does not attract you. Covers sell books.
That's true for us, too. We are being judged by our covers all the time. Now, I could wish it were not that way. It would be a much nicer world if we would not judge people by their covers, because often we have wrong perceptions and that creates all kinds of problems. But we have to face that fact that on a regular basis, people are judging our book–us–by our cover!
I believe it is important for us as believers, going out into our everyday work worlds, to be aware that we are often being judged by our covers, and to do everything we can to make it look good. Why? Well, not because we are living to try to please people or because we need the approval of others. And certainly not because we are trying to appear to be anything that we are not. But we need to be concerned with how we are perceived because we are ambassadors for Jesus Christ, and we want to do the best job we can to represent Him favorably.
Paul wrote in 2 Corinthians 8:21: "For we are taking pains to do what is right, not only in the eyes of the Lord but also in the eyes of men." Also, we need to be concerned about how others perceive us because if their perception is wrong, it can hold us back and do damage to us.
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