Gospel Outreach Conversations

What does it mean to be made “in the image of God”? If you think about it, even the best mirror in the world does a poor job of accurately reflecting back a full representation of ourselves when we look into it. Of the five senses - seeing, hearing, taste, touch, and smell - a mirror can only reproduce one. That “image” of ourselves leaves a lot of questions unanswered! So it would be a mistake to think that our being made “in the image of God” means we are anywhere near to being like God in every way, or that God is limited to just being like us. What it does mean is that, of all of creation, we humans have a special ability to understand and relate to our Creator. It also means that God has made us more like Himself, so that we possess more God-given rights and privileges than any other part of creation. I think a correct understanding of what it means to be made in God’s image can help build a right foundation for our faith to build upon, in many ways, and a recent outreach conversation touched on two of them. Early in a conversation with Christian, a young man I found out at the park talking to his friend Ignatio about just this sort of thing, he told me he believes that since he had no consciousness before he was born, he won’t have it after he dies. He sees himself as but one drop of energy that has separated for a short time but will disperse back into a vast ocean of energy after his life is over. But, I asked, given our lack of existence before we were born, is that the only conclusion we can reach? The Bible teaches us that God has always existed, for He was already there when He began creating the universe. He is not only exists into the eternal future, but he has always existed from eternity past. If we are made in God’s image, shouldn’t we have always existed too? The Bible teaches that we humans did not exist forever but, rather, had a definite beginning. Yet we are told in Ecclesiastes 3 that God has “set eternity in the human heart”. We are created in God’s image in that we will exist for eternity to come, but God’s image in us is limited in that we haven’t existed in eternity past. Christian also observed another clue that God’s image in us is limited. He rightly concludes that, on our own, we couldn’t begin to comprehend the vast complexity of such an entity as God. But we are not on our own. It isn’t a matter of man discovering God, like we might discover the cure for cancer or the laws of nature. It’s more on the order of God revealing Himself to man, at least the parts He knows we need in order for us to have a relationship with Him, and for which he holds us responsible. Our shared status as image-bearers of God should cause us to treat all other members of the human race with great respect and dignity, but we should also realize the limitations of being just an image and not the real thing. We are created beings with many sins and shortcomings, and God is the Creator, perfect in every way. He is the one who puts eternity in our hearts, reaches out to reveal Himself to us, and gives us the capacity to respond with childlike faith. And, Jesus taught, we can do more than bear God’s image, we can actually be adopted into His family: “Yet to all who did receive him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God— children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband’s will, but born of God.” (John 1) We need not settle for the limitations of simply being an “image”. As we trust and follow Christ, we can become genuine children of God, more and more like the real thing with each passing day!

How many “pleasant surprises” will there be on Judgement Day? A young man named Aaron answered my question about eternity by telling me he doesn’t believe in life after death but is open to being “pleasantly surprised”. I wonder though, is he just as open to being un-pleasantly surprised? It’s an important question, because Jesus said there will be far more about unpleasant surprises after we die than pleasant ones. Seems He well knew to be true what I have been finding out about human nature on the street – the vast majority of people fully expect that any “surprises” in the next life will automatically be pleasant ones. But in Matthew 7, Jesus states, "Enter by the narrow gate: for wide is the gate, and broad is the way that leads to destruction, and there are many who go in by it. Because narrow is the gate and difficult is the way which leads to life, and there are few who find it." The vast majority of people on that broad path to destruction will be unpleasantly surprised when they get there, because they have such a high opinion of themselves and a low opinion of the holiness of God that they can’t imagine that hell could ever be their fate. Aaron expects that this life is all there is, so his surprise would come in having any eternal life at all. But without Jesus, there is no way that any such surprise could be a pleasant one.