If our view of ourselves is anything less than being a word spoken forth by God, then our self image is a self-constructed facade -- a crust of self . ...

I have come to realize that the primary work of God's grace in our lives is to liberate us from this destructive bondage to the crust of self in order to shape us into wholeness. God is seeking to create in us a whole new structure of habits, attitudes, and perceptions, of dynamics of personal and corporate relationships, of patterns of reaction and response to the world.

This new structure is one of increasing Christlikeness. God is seeking to break the crust.

By M. Robert Mulholland Jr.