In His Image

It’s been a while since I last posted. I’ve just had a hard time conjuring up the words to share. A blog is a journal that is shared with the world, but when I blog I try to write about the things that touch all who share faith in Christ—the things that matter most in our faith walk, the way our lives are touched by the Holy Spirit and our relations with others.

One of the things he cares about the most is how we interact with the world around us, the people whom he made in his image. The attractive as well as those who make us want to turn away, the ones who make us want to distance ourselves. I encounter both on a daily basis in the job I do. The polite and the impolite. The pleasant and those who are surly. Those who bathe regularly and those whose body odor is offensive to smell. Some are easy to offer service to while others are a challenge. But all are reflections of their creator, because all are made in his image: The rich, the poverty stricken, the healthy and those with terminal illness, the gentle and the obnoxious, those who have answered God’s call and those still wandering in darkness. And God calls us to treat all with the love of Christ. Not always an easy task.

Jesus ate with sinners, prostitutes, tax collectors; the very people who were rejected as unclean by the religious leaders of that time. He also loved those who were wealthy and enjoyed the good things of life. All were being called to salvation, and it is to all now that he extends his mercy and grace as a free gift, but we have to share that good news in how we live out our lives in the presence of all people we encounter on a daily basis. It’s a task that is demanding and daunting, yet he prepares the way before us through the working of the Holy Spirit.

We must all remember that every person we see, whether they are rich and powerful or stumbling with drunkenness, are made in the image of God and have intrinsic value—value that God confers. Enough value to call for Christ’s death on the cross. I know I sometimes struggle to carry out the Great Commission, yet that is what he has called me to do. With the indwelling power of the Holy Spirit I will do what on my own I could never do, love the unlovable as well as the lovable. May he transform me even more in his image as I live out his high calling.