Friday, January 3, 2014

Whom do you take after?

The tenth day of Christmas

Dear friends, now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when Christ appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is.
1 John 3:2

To be like Christ -- that's quite a promise. When I was at Regent College, one of my profs pointed out a theme in the Bible that you become like what you worship. In the Hebrew Scriptures, there are repeated remarks that those who worship idols will become like them -- blind, deaf, unable to speak. But we worship the living God. We are created in his image, that image has been distorted by sin, and in Christ we are re-created in his likeness -- the likeness of Christ. It is our calling to perfect our likeness to Christ by imitating him. We will get as far as we can in our natural lives on this journey of becoming like him, and then at Christ's return, God will complete the transformation in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye.

No comments: