Humans, by the ways that they do what they’re doing in the world, their existence is as a pointer, to bear witness to the Creator. The image of God isn’t separate from glorifying God, but the point of an image is to point to a reality of what it represents. Humans are meant to reflect something greater than themselves, in the biblical story, humans image God in what they do. The image of God overlaps with the theme and the vocabulary of glory, what it means to glorify someone, that’s what an image does, it brings honor and it points to the reality that humans bring glory to God. The biblical vision of how humans bring glory to God, they are to rule and glorifying God, who they are imaging. Humans authority to rule is their glory, when they image God well, it’s their glory.
We existence along with all of creation, it’s meant to point to the wisdom and the power and the beauty of a being, that’s even more remarkable then we are. Biblical worship is setting aside moments to say out loud to ourselves, and to that being about how remarkable that being is, namely the Creator. It’s a moment where we build into a rhythm of our life, this recognizing our place in the universe, because we are the image of something even more glorious than humans. We image God, when we rule the world on God’s behalf, in a way that brings honor and honors the intention and purpose of the Creator and in so doing, we glorify God. We pause in our life, and we recognize that all of our life and existence is a gift from someone more beautiful, wise and amazing then we are, and our existence is meant to reflect that being. When we enjoy God’s good world in a way that sustains love of God and love of neighbor, it honors the teachings of Jesus, but when we are fulfilling our divine purpose and enjoying the gift of existence, that is a testimony to God’s glory.
But, what does it mean to forgive ourselves, to face our shame, our urge to hide? Healthy shame can motivate us to come to a place of healing. Ideally, we’re ashamed of something we’ve done to hurt somebody, that can move us to a place where we own up to what we’ve done, we at least make every effort to heal the relationship, but because we still carry inside ourselves what we’ve done, we don’t forget those things. Dealing with that process of self-forgiveness, it’s very personal and it deals with stuff deep inside of us, our urge to hide from each other. Talking about issues of shame, recognizing what we’ve done turns into this snowball of unhealthy shame, it’s complicated, often times well-intentioned people can make life really frustrating. If they just come beside us and just journey along the struggle with us, we need to honor the messiness of self-forgiveness, honor that struggle, it’s never easy and it’s never quick. It’s an act of trust that we make, it’s a struggle to take forward steps with that act of trust, as a follower of Jesus, forgiving ourselves is ultimately an act of deep faith and trust.
Trust, that there is someone who offers us a gift, it’s not cheap. It doesn’t mean that we will forget, it doesn't erase what we’ve done or the consequence of what we’ve done, but it’s there and self-forgiveness is about the struggle, moving towards that gift, because at the center of the gospel is this promise of a gift from somebody, a gift of total unconditional love and acceptance, whose arms are always open to us. The biblical vision, the sunset’s so beautiful and the apple tastes so good and the song is so transcendent and beautiful, a gift from someone who’s so generous and made the world and given us a place within it, we wanna speak well and live well for the glory of God.
1 John 4:7-16, for biblical authors, love is not primarily an emotion or feeling, but love is a word of commitment and action, a choice to act for the well-being of another person, not for ourselves, a commitment to act. The essence of God’s character is to commit himself to seek the well-being of other people. God’s love for us in the midst of our shame and in the midst of recognizing, who we are and what we’ve done, God’s love is not a fuzzy emotion in a spiritual realm, God points to a person, who lived in real time and space history, Jesus of Nazareth. God’s love is a person, through Jesus the Creator has committed to our well-being to bring us life and atoning sacrifice for our sins. God sees Jesus’ life covering us, this is the gospel of grace. What does the gift of unconditional love do to a person, it begins to us with confidence, because there’s someone who knows every dirty detail about us and still extends to us this gift of love. The biblical vision, the sunset’s so beautiful and the apple tastes so good and the song is so transcendent and beautiful, a gift from someone who’s so generous and made the world and given us a place within it, we wanna speak well and live well for the glory of God.
We existence along with all of creation, it’s meant to point to the wisdom and the power and the beauty of a being, that’s even more remarkable then we are. Biblical worship is setting aside moments to say out loud to ourselves, and to that being about how remarkable that being is, namely the Creator. It’s a moment where we build into a rhythm of our life, this recognizing our place in the universe, because we are the image of something even more glorious than humans. We image God, when we rule the world on God’s behalf, in a way that brings honor and honors the intention and purpose of the Creator and in so doing, we glorify God. We pause in our life, and we recognize that all of our life and existence is a gift from someone more beautiful, wise and amazing then we are, and our existence is meant to reflect that being. When we enjoy God’s good world in a way that sustains love of God and love of neighbor, it honors the teachings of Jesus, but when we are fulfilling our divine purpose and enjoying the gift of existence, that is a testimony to God’s glory.
But, what does it mean to forgive ourselves, to face our shame, our urge to hide? Healthy shame can motivate us to come to a place of healing. Ideally, we’re ashamed of something we’ve done to hurt somebody, that can move us to a place where we own up to what we’ve done, we at least make every effort to heal the relationship, but because we still carry inside ourselves what we’ve done, we don’t forget those things. Dealing with that process of self-forgiveness, it’s very personal and it deals with stuff deep inside of us, our urge to hide from each other. Talking about issues of shame, recognizing what we’ve done turns into this snowball of unhealthy shame, it’s complicated, often times well-intentioned people can make life really frustrating. If they just come beside us and just journey along the struggle with us, we need to honor the messiness of self-forgiveness, honor that struggle, it’s never easy and it’s never quick. It’s an act of trust that we make, it’s a struggle to take forward steps with that act of trust, as a follower of Jesus, forgiving ourselves is ultimately an act of deep faith and trust.
Trust, that there is someone who offers us a gift, it’s not cheap. It doesn’t mean that we will forget, it doesn't erase what we’ve done or the consequence of what we’ve done, but it’s there and self-forgiveness is about the struggle, moving towards that gift, because at the center of the gospel is this promise of a gift from somebody, a gift of total unconditional love and acceptance, whose arms are always open to us. The biblical vision, the sunset’s so beautiful and the apple tastes so good and the song is so transcendent and beautiful, a gift from someone who’s so generous and made the world and given us a place within it, we wanna speak well and live well for the glory of God.
1 John 4:7-16, for biblical authors, love is not primarily an emotion or feeling, but love is a word of commitment and action, a choice to act for the well-being of another person, not for ourselves, a commitment to act. The essence of God’s character is to commit himself to seek the well-being of other people. God’s love for us in the midst of our shame and in the midst of recognizing, who we are and what we’ve done, God’s love is not a fuzzy emotion in a spiritual realm, God points to a person, who lived in real time and space history, Jesus of Nazareth. God’s love is a person, through Jesus the Creator has committed to our well-being to bring us life and atoning sacrifice for our sins. God sees Jesus’ life covering us, this is the gospel of grace. What does the gift of unconditional love do to a person, it begins to us with confidence, because there’s someone who knows every dirty detail about us and still extends to us this gift of love. The biblical vision, the sunset’s so beautiful and the apple tastes so good and the song is so transcendent and beautiful, a gift from someone who’s so generous and made the world and given us a place within it, we wanna speak well and live well for the glory of God.