Tuesday, February 10, 2009

It's all about the Look

We live in a world that is saturated with selling, buying, creating, and re-creating personal image. Our culture promotes "consuming" products, resources, and people for our self-promotion and our self-actualization. We are bombarded with marketing techniques that attempt to convince us that we are entitled to "what ever makes us happy." Unfortunately this pursuit inevitably starves our soul, bloats our lusts, and desecrates the unique image of God we each possess. The entertainment and advertising industries have convinced us that image is everything. Little do they know they are absolutely correct.

The first chapter of Genesis makes it unmistakably clear that humanity is made in the "image" and "likeness" of God. Put simply, humanity was created with attributes and characteristics that reflect and radiate the nature and the essence of God. The esteem to which God holds his image bearers is evidenced by the invitation the creator of the universe offers humanity. He extends to them the opportunity to populate, oversee, and tend all that God had spoken into existence i.e. Chief Creation Officers (CCOs - not exactly starting in the mail room working our way up the everlasting corporate ladder). The picture portrayed is that of wholeness, peace, and unity between God, humanity, and all creation. God had one simple request of humanity if they were to be his CCOs - faith. God simply wanted humanity to believe that his vision for their life was superior to any they could imagine or put into practice.

But any family reunion or any news outlet attests that humanity chose to believe they were fully capable of handling human existence. Humanity chose to live life on their terms, a decision that would scar, fracture, and disfigure the image in which God made each of us.

God's response to our spiritual disfigurement was to reveal and to embody the true visage of himself and humanity. Within the person of Jesus, God animated the depth and breadth of his love and he displayed the true and original portrait of humanity. Colossians 1:15 states, "He [Jesus] is the image of the invisible God, the first born of all creation..." Put simply Jesus is at once the image of God and the image of all God's intentions for humanity. What could be more mysterious or more beautiful.

God yearns for each of us to reflect and to radiate his image now and for all of eternity. In order for us to be re-made, re-formed, or re-born into the image that he has always intended for us, we must embrace Jesus -the image of everlasting love, creativity, divinity, and even humanity. It is within the transformational embrace of Christ that we are assured of God's immeasurable love, inspired by his self-sacrifice, and empowered for a complete personal make over. God is all about image. His image is wrapped in humility and his look is crafted with love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. Whose image are we pursuing?