In Who's Image?

I have been thinking and discussing a few things the last couple of weeks and one of the things I’ve been looking at is reflections. When we as Christians try to portray God/Christ in our daily living how do we reflect Him in our life’s.

Normally when we get ready to go out in the morning one of the things, we do is we look in a mirror to see how we look, how presentable are we, how do we see ourselves and how does the world see us.

Yet often one of the things we tend to miss is, who do we reflect in our character.

With my thoughts recently one of the things I’ve been noticing is my father in my reflections in how I react to others.

He was a hard man in his day, rough, wouldn’t take any nonsense and was a violent man to the extreme. He could be brutal towards others, including his own family. He had an image that he generated 24/7, and it was an image of a hard man. He did not trust anyone and would always look down on people as if they were steppingstones and he would always strike out at people in his rage. And as part of that is the image of being a hard man, even if you weren't you had to show hardness or be trodden on.

And recently I’ve noticed a little bit of this within myself. Not striking out but an inner rage that wants to take vengeance, that wants to hurt back at those who have hurt me, that wants to give deserved justice to those who misuse and abuse people. 

And then on top of that I have recently been challenged by the fact that not only does some of my character and attitudes stem from my father (and him from his father before), but that they also stem from the life I used to live before becoming a Christian.

Living on council estates most of my life there was always a sense of distrust in people, that people are always out to get you, that people are just take, take, take and only in it for themselves. There was no honour amongst thieves, you could not trust your neighbour, you could not trust the government and you couldn’t trust the social work. One day you could be sitting with a bunch of mates and the next they would nick something if they could make a buck without batting an eyelid. 

Even the expressions or the way we speak to people, some of my own vocabulary can be colourful at times, and the words (not swearing) but the brutality and harshness of language can leave a lot to desire.

And these things shine through in our daily living and attitudes.

Yet I am beginning to discover that these things that are influenced by those who we once spent time with are not what God wants for us. We are made in His image and in out human sinfulness we have diluted that image because of who we spend time with or who we follow in society.

Yet God wants us to be like His Son Jesus and this is a big challenge for me and it makes me think of a story I heard many years ago.

‘There was once a Christian man who decided to stop going to church and so when a couple of Sundays came and went, the local pastor seen that the man hadn’t been to the services. So, the pastor went to his house and seen the man sitting in his living-room in front of the coal fire. So, the pastor sat down and didn’t say a thing to the man, and he sat there for a good 20 minutes. And then he decided to leave and as he did so he took the tongs from the fire, lifted a lump of coal from the fire and placed it to the side and left. The next week the man who had vowed not to go back was sitting in church again.’

See, the man realised, that separation from the fire, from the heat would make the fire in the lump go out very quickly and that he needed to be a part of the fire.

And we are the same when it comes to reflecting God’s image. If we separate ourselves from the flock, we get influenced by the wrong things and end up showing an image that God does not want us to show.

I don’t know about you but I want to reflect Christ’s image in my life and I have to be honest there has been many times I have not, yet it all comes down to who I spend time with and what I do to show that image.

So, let me encourage you today. Spend time with God, spend time with His people and separate from the things of the world that are causing you to not bear His image.

Here is a link that I believe we can read and pray to the father to learn to be IN HIS IMAGE.