Wheat field Banner

Gleanings From The Word

Tag: 1 Corinthians

  • Reflections on the image of God

    Reflections on the image of God

    evergreen trees reflected in a puddle

    A simple photograph of an evergreen tree reflecting in a puddle. There’s nothing unusual about it. You can’t see the tree itself, but you know it’s there and what it looks like.

    Even if someone walks through the puddle, you’ll still see the reflection; it won’t be as clear, but it will be there.  That’s the nature of reflections.

    In a way, the bible talks about reflections. It uses the word image.

    “Then God said, ‘Let us make man in our image, after our likeness…’
    So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.”     Genesis 1:26-27

    We are created “imago Dei” in the image of God. Our lives reflect Him. All people carry that image to some degree, even if it sonly hows the absence of God in their lives. He is still magnified because the absence of God in some lives shows the difference of having Him in someone’s life.

    Every person’s life has value because it is in the image of God, that is, ontological dignity.

    We are designed to be in relationship with God and others. His image gives us relational capacity.

    Since we represent God, we are to show His character. That is our moral vocation.

    As image bearers, we are given dominion to manage, not exploit the resources He gave us (or every type). We have representative dominion – we act as His ambassadors and stewards.

    Believers have a calling to better representation since we have been saved and Holy Spirit dwells in us.

    Put to death therefore what is earthly in you: sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry. On account of these the wrath of God is coming. In these you too once walked, when you were living in them. But now you must put them all away: anger, wrath, malice, slander, and obscene talk from your mouth. Do not lie to one another, seeing that you have put off the old self with its practices and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator. Colossians 3:5-10

    What kind of an image are you reflecting. If people watched the puddle of your life, would the tree be seen more clearly over time? Would God be magnified even more by the way you represent Him, and compared to Jesus over time?

    May the imago Dei be ever more clear in you. May you bring Him more glory day by day.

    Be blessed

    General Revelation: Why No One Can Claim They Didn’t Know
    # Right Belief Must Become Right Living

  • What Do You See? Opening our spiritual eyes.

    What Do You See? Opening our spiritual eyes.

    stylized Adam and Eve hiding in the garden

    We aren’t very far into the Bible when things go terribly wrong. You know the story.

    Now the serpent was more crafty than any other beast of the field that the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God actually say, ‘You shall not eat of any tree in the garden’?” And the woman said to the serpent, “We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden, but God said, ‘You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the midst of the garden, neither shall you touch it, lest you die.’” But the serpent said to the woman, “You will not surely die.  For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate, and she also gave some to her husband who was with her, and he ate. Then the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked. And they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loincloths. And they heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden. Genesis 3:1-8 esv

    Now, prior to this, both Adam and Eve walked in the garden in a close personal relationship. They knew the Lord as intimately and personally as it is possible for a person to know Him. They understood His love, compassion and mercy.

    What changed? The obvious answer is they sinned. Yet, what moved them from joy to fear?

    With sin-filled eyes, we cannot see God as He truly is. They now saw God through distorted lenses and created a harsh God of their own imaginings. It’s what we do.

    Some see God as a Monty Python-like foot ready to stomp on us for any sin. Others see Him as a cosmic genie there to grant our every wish and desire. For some people, he’s a doddering old man who either cannot see our sins or, if he does, is unable or unwilling to do anything about them.

    There are those who pretend that He doesn’t exist. The great civilizations of the past imagined Him as a pantheon of very flawed human-like capricious gods.

    The truth is that the God revealed to us in the Bible is none of those things. He is benevolent, omnipotent, omnipresent, and omniscient. He loves us so much that Jesus came and died so that we could be restored into a right relationship with Him and be adopted into His family.

    He is too beautiful and wonderful for us to understand with our sin-filled minds. Even as believers whose sins have been atoned for do not yet see him clearly, but the day will come when we will. He will open our spiritual eyes to see the truth.

    For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known. 1 Corinthians 13:32

    I can hardly wait. What about you?

    Be blessed

    Kevin

    Gleanings From The Word – Experience an extraordinary God in ordinary life. 

    On a similar theme

    Do you see things through the eyes of faith?