Next week one of our EBC women will commit to the lifelong relationship of marriage. At that time, she will enter a new role: she will become a wife.
This new status will involve two aspects: it entails an unchanging position as well as an ongoing practice.Status: She is a wife (this is her unchanging position)
Behavior: She’ll act in ways a wife acts (this includes her ongoing practice/s)
Her status will be symbolized and visibly communicated by the ring she’ll wear on her left hand.
Her behavior will be observed continually by others as she demonstrates her status of wife by living the role in practical, wifely actions.
And likely, her credibility and 'success' as wife will be judged on the basis of her behavior. Her testimony of love for her husband will largely be dependent on her ongoing actions of being a loving, serving, winsome wife as she displays this status.
Although there is definitely much fodder for consideration & conversation on this topic, I bring out this dual essence of being a wife because it parallels another reality.
It is the relationship we have as human beings as image bearers of God.
Genesis 1:27 gives that familiar declaration of God after creating man (and woman):
“So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.”
Technical and comprehensive explanations aside, mankind was created to bear God's image.
Bringing this down to the individual and personal level, you and I are here on earth to reflect the image of God.
What does that mean?
Getting back to my initial comparison in marriage, I think this involves two aspects:
Status: our unchanging position
Behavior: our ongoing practices
The first we have no responsibility in: by our very essence as human beings, we bear the image of God. This is a great mystery, yet some have attempted to identify how: in our rational capacities, our ability to make choices, our relational essence, to name a few. This unchanging aspect I’ll allow you to study out on your own, as you might desire.
The second aspect, however, is my emphasis today. It is in this area that we have great opportunity to reflect, as image bearers, the greatness of our God.
How do you bear the image of God?
Each of us is able to display to limited degree the love of God (as we love sacrificially), the holiness of God (as we uphold his justice), the patience of God (as we forbear and perservere in difficult circumstances), the mercy of God (as we withhold from our ‘enemies’ what they deserve), the grace of God (as we give to our husbands what he doesn’t deserve, etc), and on and on it goes.
Each of these displays of God’s attributes reflects His image to some degree.
But in addition to these equally-available-to-all opportunities in life to display God’s attributes, I’d suggest we each have unique parts of who God created us to be that can display His image differently than another could.
Some might call this giftedness.
And it is in these gifts that you have a one-of-a-kind possibility for displaying the image of God.
In your individuality, how do you display the image of God? In the ways that you are uniquely who God created you, how is the wonder of God demonstrated?
In the next post, I’d like to explore these in brief detail, but consider the following: Creativity, Relational savvy, Scholarship, Beauty-creating, Laughter-Vivaciousness, Industry, Passion/Emotion, Organization, Reliable Steadfastness, Joyfulness…
Whatever marks who you are, as God’s handiwork, it bears a part of His image in the specific nature of that component of you.
Each specific quality one might possess is like a brush stroke in the master portrait of Himself—you display its color, intensity, tone and texture differing from and unlike another’s.
Will you display your uniqueness in full splendor to His glory, to the magnificence of His image?
This new status will involve two aspects: it entails an unchanging position as well as an ongoing practice.Status: She is a wife (this is her unchanging position)
Behavior: She’ll act in ways a wife acts (this includes her ongoing practice/s)
Her status will be symbolized and visibly communicated by the ring she’ll wear on her left hand.
Her behavior will be observed continually by others as she demonstrates her status of wife by living the role in practical, wifely actions.
And likely, her credibility and 'success' as wife will be judged on the basis of her behavior. Her testimony of love for her husband will largely be dependent on her ongoing actions of being a loving, serving, winsome wife as she displays this status.
Although there is definitely much fodder for consideration & conversation on this topic, I bring out this dual essence of being a wife because it parallels another reality.
It is the relationship we have as human beings as image bearers of God.
Genesis 1:27 gives that familiar declaration of God after creating man (and woman):
“So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.”
Technical and comprehensive explanations aside, mankind was created to bear God's image.
Bringing this down to the individual and personal level, you and I are here on earth to reflect the image of God.
What does that mean?
Getting back to my initial comparison in marriage, I think this involves two aspects:
Status: our unchanging position
Behavior: our ongoing practices
The first we have no responsibility in: by our very essence as human beings, we bear the image of God. This is a great mystery, yet some have attempted to identify how: in our rational capacities, our ability to make choices, our relational essence, to name a few. This unchanging aspect I’ll allow you to study out on your own, as you might desire.
The second aspect, however, is my emphasis today. It is in this area that we have great opportunity to reflect, as image bearers, the greatness of our God.
How do you bear the image of God?
Each of us is able to display to limited degree the love of God (as we love sacrificially), the holiness of God (as we uphold his justice), the patience of God (as we forbear and perservere in difficult circumstances), the mercy of God (as we withhold from our ‘enemies’ what they deserve), the grace of God (as we give to our husbands what he doesn’t deserve, etc), and on and on it goes.
Each of these displays of God’s attributes reflects His image to some degree.
But in addition to these equally-available-to-all opportunities in life to display God’s attributes, I’d suggest we each have unique parts of who God created us to be that can display His image differently than another could.
Some might call this giftedness.
And it is in these gifts that you have a one-of-a-kind possibility for displaying the image of God.
In your individuality, how do you display the image of God? In the ways that you are uniquely who God created you, how is the wonder of God demonstrated?
In the next post, I’d like to explore these in brief detail, but consider the following: Creativity, Relational savvy, Scholarship, Beauty-creating, Laughter-Vivaciousness, Industry, Passion/Emotion, Organization, Reliable Steadfastness, Joyfulness…
Whatever marks who you are, as God’s handiwork, it bears a part of His image in the specific nature of that component of you.
Each specific quality one might possess is like a brush stroke in the master portrait of Himself—you display its color, intensity, tone and texture differing from and unlike another’s.
Will you display your uniqueness in full splendor to His glory, to the magnificence of His image?
Embrace who God made you to boldly display to the world the image of God.
He didn't make clones to bear his image; He made male and female, in a myriad of variables of personality and talent, ability and aptitude.
He could've made cookie-cutter image bearers.
But he didn't.
Bear his image with grace and gratitude.
...and gusto!
Not because in ourselves we have anything to boast,
but because of His image, of which He's given us opportunity to bear!
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