LIKE Five-Minute Friday

Bearing an Image of the Real Thing

Images help me see things that remind me of something or someone. In many ways, a good image is like the real thing. Sometimes, in the pre-digital age, I would take a picture and the image was fuzzy or even missing what was most important. So digital photography can be so much better. In fact, even though my iPhone cost far more than my first camera, the cost per picture is far lower than the cost of the film and the developing costs. Furthermore, I can see what the image is like immediately.

Yesterday was Thanksgiving 2022. Cindie and I are thankful that our home was filled with some dear family members. Each of them is different, but they all have some wonderful similarities. Our son is like me, and when I see how he lives as a husband and a father, I am so encouraged. You see, the way he is behaving, speaking, responding, working, and loving, all image me. Thankfully, I rarely see anything of my less stellar behaviors in him. When he is like me, at least the part of me that is growing in grace and in sanctification, then he is not only like me, but he is like his Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. And Jesus is the one I want to be like.

What God Likes to See

God gets the glory when we are good image bearers. That was his intention at the very beginning. All of creation shows his grandeur, but only the image bearers give us the clearest image of the real thing. In Genesis it says, “Then God said, ‘Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.’” Genesis 1:26

Don’t miss the significance of who you are or should be: “So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.” Genesis 1:27

This is so important that it is a repeat of the image theme in the scriptures. “This is the book of the generations of Adam. When God created man, he made him in the likeness of God. Male and female, he created them, and he blessed them and named them Man when they were created. When Adam had lived 130 years, he fathered a son in his own likeness, after his image, and named him Seth.” Genesis 5:1-3

In fact, if you think about it, each of the Ten Commandments is designed to help us remember that God is the one we are to image (to be like) and that no additional images are needed.

How to Identify a Follower of Jesus

A follower of Jesus wants to think, respond, talk, and act like Jesus. Someday that will be complete.

“See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are. The reason why the world does not know us is that it did not know him. Beloved, we are God’s children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is. And everyone who thus hopes in him purifies himself as he is pure.” 1 John 3:1-3

Five Minute Friday

This post is part of the weekly Five-Minute Friday link-up.

All scripture passages are from the English Standard Version except as otherwise noted.