“Reflecting the Image of God as Worship (Essentials Blue ‘09)”
Saint Irenaeus stated that “The glory of God is Man fully alive”. I’ve often thought that “Worship is any expression that brings glory to God”. Referring to the restorative work of Jesus Peter states in 2 Peter 1:4: “And because of his glory and excellence, he has given us great and precious promises. These are the promises that enable you to share his divine nature“. Through the work of Jesus, we are again restored to Gods original plan for humans to be “like God”.
Our Goal as Christians is to rehumanize the culture into what God originally intended us to be; partakers of his glory, his character, his activities as acts of Worship to Our Creator. But before we can rehumanize the culture we must first understand who we are in this grand picture of Gods creation.
Genesis 1:27 states “So God created human beings in his own image. In the image of God he created them”. We created in the image of God! When we understand that God gave himself as a ransom for the entire World he tells us that he values us as much as he values himself!
That was a strong theological statement, but consider Jesus own words “Love your neighbor as yourself”. Jesus never commanded us to do something that he didn’t do first hence we love Him because He loved us first. Jesus loves us as much as he loves himself consequently he states to love your neighbor as you love yourself. He loved us so much that he actually died for us.
Don’t get me wrong, I am by no means agreeing with darkness in stating that we are Gods and should strive to dethrone the Lord (not like we could!). Satan said in the garden: “God knows that your eyes will be opened as soon as you eat it, and you will be like God, knowing both good and evil.”
Satan was trying to take Gods place and was not content with his place in the created order and convinced us that we should strive to take Gods place through individualism (the Worship of oneself as God and center, unlike individuality with is good and God given) or through humanism (the cooperate belief in humanity itself as being Savior and Lord). Consider Jesus words in the Gospel of John:
John 10 34 Jesus replied, “It is written in your own Scriptures that God said to certain leaders of the people, ‘I say, you are gods!’ 35 And you know that the Scriptures cannot be altered. So if those people who received God’s message were called ‘gods,’ 36 why do you call it blasphemy when I say, ‘I am the Son of God’?
Jesus is making it very clear that people that accept the message of God through faith are “gods”. I know this is touchy but Jesus was referring to Psalm 82:6 which states, “I say, You are gods, sons of the Most High, all of you”. We are like our Father in Heaven thorough our gifts, talents, creativity, family structure, our body, soul and spirit in the form of the trinity, and most of all our love but we are most certainly not God, the great “I am”.
Let us life life’s that in whatever we do we reflect the majesty, love, mystery and joyfulness of our creator God. Though God mercy we are allowed be partakers of Gods glory once again. If you haven’t been born again you can receive Jesus as your Savior, admitting to sin and asking God to cleanse you eternally by His own blood on the cross.
Whether you’re a musician, painter, administrative worker, nurse, farmer etc, let your good works glorify God and be an image bearer of the characteristics and glory of God through everything that you do!
Romans 12:1-2 (The Message)
“So here’s what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life – your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life – and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for Him. Don’t become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You’ll be changed from the inside out.”
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