The Image of God

Today marks the start of a new month and new challenge I put forward to the members of the congregation and to myself. Awhile ago our church participated in a planned reading of the Bible in 90 days. Yes you read that correctly. We read the entire Bible in 3 months. During the first experiment, I learned a great deal of planning a very intense reading schedule. I also learned a lot from the Bible reading it from "cover to cover." During the first challenge, we meet weekly to review our readings and encourage ourselves for the week ahead. This time I took some of the lessons and revamp the readings a little. For one, the Sunday will be a Sabbath rest on reading the Bible (or you can use it as a time to catch up). Also, we will not be meeting weekly during the summer to review and prepare for the readings. Lastly, it may be a little longer than 90 days. WE start on June First and go through the last day of August.

Today being the first of June is the start of the great challenge again. I already finished today's reading (Yes I did read it). Today was Genesis 1-16. This section has the whole of creation, all of the early works of God with the people, the flood and the tower of Babel. It also contains the start of the Jewish history with Abraham and Sarah (known by their given names Abram and Sarai). IT was in this section that Sarai is passed off as Abram's sister in Egypt, Lot separates and is saved by Abram and Hagar is given to Abram to bear a son. Full of great stories and moments in the story of the Bible. Yet, what catches my attention today is nothing to do with these fantastic stories of faith and working to follow God's desire. Rather, I am caught and focused on the creation account.

During the creation, God speaks that He will make people, humans, in OUR image (Gen. 1:26). I must admit that when I was younger, this passage was not a central part of the teaching. I remember that we, male and female, are made in the image of God, His image (Gen. 1:27). What are we, I, to make of this strange configuration of pronouns and wording. Who is GOd speaking with in the passage that we are told, "we shall make in our"? I am perplexed a little in the passage, yet, a little comforted.

As I wrote about yesterday, Sunday was the reminder in the church calendar of Trinity Sunday. A special day we set aside to remind and celebrate that God has been and is presented as three persons and we participate in all three. This is what I believe to be a foundation of where we see the Trinity presented in the earliest parts of the Bible. God puts little points through out the books to help us see the truth.

This passage points to something greater in the reality of coming to know God. People are formed in the image of God, male and female, they are formed. The way to coming to know God better is not some self introspection. We need a community of men and women to help us discover fully God. We need a fellowship. This is clear when we see that the image of God we poses is only partial and needs the fullness that comes from all.

The challenge is for us to allow ourselves seen as just a part of the whole and not the whole in ourselves. We need each other, espically if we wish to follow the demands of Christ.
Hebrew; Syriac all the wild animals

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Truth

“I have much more to say to you, more than you can now bear. But when he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all truth. He will not speak on his own; he will speak only what he hears, and he will tell you what is yet to come. He will bring glory to me by taking from what is mine and making it known to you. All that belongs to the Father is mine. That is why I said the Spirit will take from what is mine and make it known to you.
(John 16:12-15, NIV, Bible.Logos.com)

The week prior to Trinity Sunday was one full of unique moments of God's grace and presence as I prepared for the Sunday worship service and the sermon I needed to deliver. I was lead a month ago to deliver a sermon on the passage at the top of the page, John 16:12-15. The passage discusses how the disciples are not ready as of yet to hear everything Jesus has to teach them. Part of hte reason (I believe) is because of what is about to happen to the followers of Jesus with the crucifixion and the doubt of who Jesus really is. Jesus proclaims a Spirit of truth to be given as a teacher to the followers. The remarkable part of the past week is the conversations and moments of focus on truth I had this past week.

The first experience of truth was a book I read (amazingly quickly) on the discipleship of men in the church. I read The Map: The Way of All Great Men.The author, David Murrow, presents a journey of men that is three fold. This journey resembles the life of Christ and comes from the Gospel According to Matthew. The journeys revolve around men traveling in a direction surrender to God's desire and willingness to follow His will. The second journey is one of strength. This is where my other conversations came into a focus.

The second encounter was with leaders from another church who I was meeting to work on projects of the regional body of my denomination. Over lunch we discussed many of the issues facing our denomination and the churches' we work with. As we discussed, I was asked how we can keep and get people into the church again. The other leaders were able to spend time in churches not of our denomination on a regular bases and look at what they are doing to teach and reach people for the Kingdom of God. I stated that we leaders (lay and ordained) need to make a solid deceleration in what we believe. We need to state that the Bible is God's instruction and we need to live according to those standards. Many of the churches and religious groups who are growing and receiving new followers are those who are putting a consistent message of beliefs and expectations of the followers. Jesus demanded the same from His followers. They were expected to learn and live the life He called them to accomplish. The demand was so great that many people did not come and follow because of that demand.

I was challenged even further on this point in respects to putting forward too strict a lifestyle. I followed that with the fact that we must teach God's grace. We cannot live this life demand of us on our own. If we could, there would be no reason for God to send His Son. We need the grace and the Spirit that is sent. I believe we must teach the truth of what Christ has accomplished and is accomplishing in the lives of His followers. We also must teach that Christ came to offer grace to live the life that He called to live.

In my sermon, I challenged all the listeners, myself included, that we must teach the truth that the Spirit is teaching us. We also must teach the grace that Christ has bought us. I also challenged the young people to hold our feet to the fire that we teach these great truths to them. We cannot fail. Their future and our demands on our willingness to answer the call of Christ. I hope that I cannot answer the call and stand firm on Christ's truth.