God's Image Bearers

When you and I look into the “Mirror of Life” as Christians, is the reflection we see the total image of Jesus? Allow me to save you the trouble – no. In addition, no believer is ever going to be perfect at his or her Christ-likeness. The believer’s right-standing with God is secured through Christ, but the likeness of Christ for Christians will always need improvement. Therefore, the eternal challenge issued once individuals accept Christ as Savior is to develop as God’s Image Bearers.

I recently watched a program on Netflix called "The Crown" – a series about the life of England's Queen Elizabeth. Something that the Holy Spirit taught me through this series was the importance of the Christian's representation of and reflection on King Jesus in everything he or she does every day.

There were many people that were associated with Queen Elizabeth. She had friends. She had acquaintances. She had employees. She had servants. She had fellow leaders of the country (Parliament). All these people attempted to not only represent England and The Queen respectfully wherever they went, they also tried to reflect the character and values of the Monarchy at all times. Interestingly enough, the individuals that seemed to have the most challenging time with this was the group closest to The Queen - her family.

Applied to The Church of Christ, my perspective is that Christians grasp the Ambassador role of the faith. Yes, we do represent Christ to the world through our speech, actions and thoughts. Scripture says in 2 Corinthians 5:20 –

"We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us." 

However, Jesus paid too high a price for us to just have a title and a few privileges. Because of the power in Christ's blood, when we accept His sacrifice and victory into our lives as the governing force - we become friends and family of God. Scripture in John 1:12 says, 

"Yet to all who did receive him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God" 

and 1 Peter 2:9 continues this thought stating – 

"you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s special possession, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light."

The last Scripture I’ll share here is John 15:15, Jesus said –

“I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master’s business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you.”

The believer’s right-standing with God or righteousness has been clinched by the death, burial and resurrection of Christ Jesus. Acceptance of Christ's Salvation plan for your life is great, but that is not all.

Being associated with The King of all kings and representing Him in a biblically maturing manner is always a good plan, but the rest of a Christian's walk is living out the joy from where or what God saved you.

Since Adam and Eve ‘till today - the goal has remained for those who believe to seek Godly transformation and look forward to a Heavenly destination. Let there be no doubt, the faith walk of a Christian is guaranteed to be hazardous, but not without God's presence and guidance for the believer’s life.

Therefore, my encouragement and challenge for all my brothers and sisters in Christ today is to realize the mantle of being God’s Image Bearer and reflect God's character and values into the world around you, especially seeing that true believers are part of God’s family through Christ Jesus.

Just as a diamond can show many facets or sides to its beauty, so can God use all the different people in The Church as His facets to express His love and beauty to people. If His own family does something contrary to His Word and plan for their lives, then that mirror, that diamond, the lives of believers – His image is filthy and Christians reflect poorly or mis-represent Him to those around us.

One way to avoid reflecting Him poorly is to have more one-on-one encounters with The King. Even though Christians carry the presence of the Holy Spirit with them everywhere they go, I believe The King desires more secluded time with believers every day to help sear His image upon His sons and daughters through the study of His Word.

The main effort then, for the Christian, is to always be striving toward recovering or returning to - the pre-fall condition of being made in God’s image and His likeness.

In Genesis 1:26 God said, 

"'Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over....".

To begin I want you to catch two important observations about this verse. The first is that there is a comma after the word "image" for a reason. The comma is meant to give the reader pausel. - the word "image" and the word "likeness" are not the same word. 

"Image" in the original Hebrew is the word Tselem. This word means resemblance. In this sense resemblance refers to having the same kind of make-up - body, mind and soul - therefore being a person like God is a person.

"Likeness" in the original Hebrew is the word D'muth. This word means similitude. However, this similarity refers to the mannerisms of Adam and Eve matching up with God's.

Second of all the words "so that" implies that the preceding image and likeness are used in some fashion. How are God’s image and likeness used? Ruler-ship or dominion - "that they (Adam and Eve) may rule over..." In this case, it was the creatures of the earth and sea that they were to have dominion.

Today in the Christian journey, the great question is – what do you have dominion over and are you a steward of it through Christ Jesus and His Holy Spirit? As we see from the study of His Word, dominion over anything begins with His image and likeness within us.

So a quick status check for me or any other Christian would be to initialize a reflective Life Through the Spirit Report Card. Ask the Holy Spirit to grade you from questions that are based from Romans 8:14-17. Questions like –

·      Do I screen decisions through the discernment of the Holy Spirit first?

·      Do I still allow fear to steer my choices?

·      Do I keep in view God as my Father?

·      Do I recognize coming suffering, but realize greater reward?

·      Do I realize how I respond to these questions attracts or detracts others from The Family of God?

While the believer’s salvation is complete through Jesus and the Christian’s body will be glorified or perfected one day, the believer’s Christ-like image will always be a work-in-progress. God has called His family to be stewards in this life. Stewards of what? His image. Therefore, as we live in expectation of His return for His family, I encourage all my brothers and sisters in Christ - improve at being God’s Image Bearers.