So, who are you? Who does God think you are and who does he
want you to be? In the last post I suggested that people are made in the image
of God – that they are the image of God. Having been made in that image, we are
not crafted in perfect likeness of God but with an imprint of his character.
That imprint drives our desires and values if we live in it.
God sees you as his creation, as his child. He loves you and
wants you to grow in his image so that you can live a life most satisfying and
sublime. We know he loves you because John tells us that the sending of Jesus
was due to God’s love for you. Even while we were sinners, we are told, Christ
died for us. In both the Old Testament and the New we are told that God’s intent
is to gather all nations to himself. This statement tells us that God indeed
loves the world and wants all people to live with him.
God sees in you himself; his own image being perfected and
shaped through your life on this planet. God is not in a hurry nor will his
patience run out. Rather than making you have compassion, God allows it to
develop within you. Compassion develops as you experience situations that call
for it. At first you will not be compassionate due to your own pride and
defensiveness against those who seem to invade your comfort and space. God is
aware that you are imperfect and that you will miss some situations. Learn
this: that is OK; it’s expected; it is not damning. Over time you will
encounter other situations calling for compassion and you will begin to learn
that extending it does cost time, resources, and space. But you also come to
learn that by giving yourself to them, you become more free and less
constrained. You learn not only that compassion is right, but that it connects
with that image buried inside you which confirms this, and living a life of
compassion opens the world to you. You slowly come to see the world as God sees
it.
In short, you eventually come to identify so much with God
that it is no longer you who lives but God lives in and through you. Slowly the
over-stated selfishness, defensiveness, and pride we have come to practice give
way to patience, goodness, acceptance, and compassion for others.
While we are walking this path of being transformed. As we
surrender to the promptings of the Spirit and in accordance with who we come to
know as God, we live as God’s people have always been meant to live. We live
individually and communally as God’s people who embody his image in each of us
and in our communities. While neither is perfect and both remain on the path of
transformation, God wants us to be his economy and his example in the world.
When people see us – individually and communally – they are given the
opportunity to see God. As they see God in us, they are either attracted to God
or repulsed. Those who are attracted move toward and are accepted by the people
of God in their imperfections just as we were. Those who reject God are blessed
by God’s people because they too are made by God and bear his image. We
exercise God’s grace and patience with them just as God did with us and has
throughout history.
Who are you? You are both the treasure of God, blessed by
him with knowledge of him and his presence. At the same time you are his image
in this world. You are in fact, God in this world. The blessing is not
insignificant and the call to presence in the world as God is the greatest call
you can have.
God loves you. Let him show you how you were made to live.
So our mission to be God to the world doesn't originate at Christ's birth. We read about biblical character doing that before Christ, like Ruth, Jonah and the prophets. Christ's life is a catalysis for living with God in our hearts instead of in our temples. He rejects religious and social bureaucracy as God rejects the Tower of Babel. The Church gets stuck playing church fairly quickly when making rules for ordination, restrictions on women's roles, drinking, etc. My point is freedom in Christ can be restricted unnecessarily in an organized Church structure. Not having rules makes people nervous, though. We want a king to be God on our behalf. However, God calls each of us to be Him to the people in our daily lives without regard to the restrictions that the Church has put on us.
ReplyDeleteSomeone has said, "Ahh yes, denominationalism - the free Spirit of God set in concrete." We humans do like structure and predictable rules to make us feel safe. You're right, this tendency does get in the way quite often. But...Christianity isn't designed as an individual enterprise. Humans also need community both for support and discipline so the existence of churches isn't inherently pointless or useless. They are not however the end all of God's plan. Having a people made up of transforming individuals, who live His life among nonbelievers and with each other is what he's after. Realizing that the Sabbath was made for people rather than people for the Sabbath is integral to not being stuck in church rules.
ReplyDeleteSure. I'd like the church staff to be focused on guiding us spiritually. A lot of the time they are but they are also required to uphold a certain denominational structure that can distract the congregation from the gospel. It is important, therefore, for me to look beyond my local church leadership and certainly beyond the leadership of my church tradition for a fuller view of the spirit of God throughout the world. Life together is a global activity that can be stunted by having too narrow of a leadership pool to look to for guidance. If I widen my spiritual lens then the rules local leaders place on life together start looking very small and irrelevant indeed.
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