"In the image of God we were made long ago...
That you love one another as I have loved you."
So went the song that kept circulating through my mind.
The Image.
When we look into a mirror we see only an image of ourselves--not the real us. We, Christians, are like that mirror. We are the mirror, so to speak, that God looks into. How do we reflect Him? Is the mirror dull, dirty, spotted; or is it sparkling clear?
Let us let God's glory shine out of us.
Sanctify ourselves. His Word asks us to "Be holy, for I am Holy..." (1 Peter 1:15,16)
Communion. God yearns for us to talk to Him; to commune with Him, to have intimacy with Him. He has made us worthy through Jesus' death and resurrection and His redeeming work in us. This He initiated in us at our time of salvation.
Sanctification and communion. What are they about?
Sanctification: a big word signifying that process for becoming more Christlike. It's the work of the Holy Spirit in our lives. Again God says to us "Be holy, because I am" and as 2 Corinthians 7:1 tells us, "...let us purify ourselves from everything that contaminates body and spirit, perfecting holiness out of reverence for God." We are to aim for that perfection.
God knows we are human but still asks us to aim for that perfection and holiness to be "like Him". (2 Corinthians 13:11). Like Father, like son or daughter.
When we reflect God we will love others as He loved us. How has He loved us? By sending His Son to redeem us. He held out His hands to us and is still holding them out to us still yearning for us, reaching for us, inviting us to commune.
God visited Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden wanting to commune with them.
He enjoyed it.
Imagine yourself there. Nothing to mar that peaceful, wonderful time; that appointment with God in the beautiful Garden of Eden.
We are not told how many days, months, or years until The Fall happened. No doubt enough time had elapsed that the time spent with God in "the cool of the day" was an established routine so that Adam and Eve's day was not complete without it. Communion with God their Creator was essential.
Satan had to stick his oar in and ruin that paradise communion. He's like that. Still is today; come to steal, kill and destroy. He will find all ways and means to stop and break that communion; that intimacy we may have with God. His ways include any number of distractions and evils: adultery, incest, drinking, drugs, gambling; anything, even good things that we could put priority to, that would mar that relationship between God and ourselves.
Many people are hurting because their earthly father betrayed their trust in one way or another. Therefore, the idea of God as their Father is not easy to come to grips with.
Hurting person...talk to Jesus instead if that is easier for you than to God. It was like that for one person I know, whom I'll call Katie, until she fell in love with God.
She yearned for her father's affection. She craved to be vindicated as a woman, a girl, a female but because of the way her Dad treated her Mom, she never seemed to be able to attain that significance. The father would tell stories to others in her Mom's hearing that were hurtful to her Mom. It made people laugh but the Mom was put in a bad light.
Katie came to despise her Mom because those stories made her out to be a stupid woman. She also came to hate men. Those stories were an affront to her as a female resulting in much unhappiness with her own gender. Resentment towards anything too female caused the dislike of women in general and of being a woman in particular.
Paradoxically resentment flared towards her Dad and men. Regardless of that Katie would still attempt to gain her Dad's appropriate affection and attention and did succeed in a limited way. But at the core, to be accepted, treasured and cherished for who she was as a person and more significantly, as a woman, was still elusive.
Grappling with that got carried over into her eventual marriage where she desperately demanded the same of her husband. Little success there. These issues dulled and cracked the mirror that was Katie, restricting God's glory and image from illuminating forth.
Don't despair. Katie did eventually grasp that God is always there, ready to accept us and love us for who we are. His yearning arms are outstretched in love to us. He can and will wrap us in His love and affection. He treasures us. He loved us ever so long before we thought of loving Him. (1 John 4:9-19)
If we are to love one another as He loved us, we must see how He showed us His love. Over the thousands of years of time, He has continually reached out to mankind.
He and Abraham were friends. Abraham could talk to Him frankly which is especially noted in His prayer to save as many righteous persons in Sodom and Gomorrah as possible.
God didn't mind that frank talk; it was communion. What is communion?
This does not refer to the breaking of bread and drinking of wine in remembrance of Jesus death and resurrection. According to the New Collins International Dictionary, communion is "an exchange of thoughts, emotion, etc". Think of that ladies!! God cares about our emotions; He wants to hear about them. It is also a "sharing in common anticipation and an exchange of strong feeling akin to being 'in-tune' with someone else". Men, you too are allowed to have emotions and to express the depths of your soul with God. He cares.Just think of that. God wants and encourages communion with His people. He yearns for this with us; an intense, wanting desire to commune with us, His creatures. Abraham was in his right.
Hannah...ladies...out of her desperation, poured out her heart's pain and yearning for a child. God heard her, understood her, and granted her request.
David, after he had sinned (Psalm 51) repented, confessed and was scared to death that God would break communion with him. He besought God NOT to take the Holy Spirit away from him. God showed His mercy and granted David his desire.
Think of all God's dealings with the Israelites time and time again. Even though they sinned often, God still reached out to them--wanting, longing to reconnect if they so wished.
Saul, the persecutor in the New Testament, got 'arrested' by God. He literally got stopped in his tracks (Acts 9:1-6). Saul didn't go to God, God went to Saul. Saul could relate to God but not to Jesus. It will be that way for some people. God introduced Saul to Jesus.
We know what wondrous results that brought; salvation for Saul who would now be known as Paul. God and Paul then had great communion even as Paul began the process of sanctification. He then began to reflect, more and more, the image of God in a clearer and cleaner way.
Communion and sanctification go hand and glove in mirroring the image of God in our lives too. May the glory of God shine forth from us in ever increasing measure.
Great and mighty things were revealed to Daniel because of his intimacy and multiple daily times of communion with God. He knew God's heart well. That wasn't always appreciated by his colleagues but the kings saw and respected Daniel. Even the colleagues, though, knew that image of God that was stamped upon Daniel.
Let us encourage one another to reach up to our Heavenly Father. Grasp His outstretched arms. Commune with Him in sincerity. Let there be that pivotal moment when we fall in love with God. He'll reciprocate.
Commune with Him. He is waiting to hear from you. Imagine yourself sitting in the Garden of Eden with all its beautiful greenery and foliage, quiet waters; tame animals brushing up against you, and you sitting in a soft patch of grass near the river bank in the "cool of the day". You are waiting expectantly for God to appear to share His desires with you.
You can count on Him coming because He always comes every day at that time. You are eager and early for that appointment. Here He comes let Him wrap His loving, tender arms about you. He is cherishing His treasure: His daughter, His son, you, in appropriate ways as a mother her child, and conversing with you.
Be still now.
Know He is God.
Know He is your Champion.
Know He wants only good for you.
To hear your voice. To talk with you.
Open God's Word. Read a portion.
Meditate on it. Commune.
This does not mean all your troubles will vanish. Just give you the way through them. The strength and help to overcome in the knowledge that He loves you and cares about you and your everyday life.
In this knowledge may His image shine ever brighter in you and reflect to others so that God will get the glory, honor and respect due to Him in our lives. So that others will know that you are His disciple known and loved by God. And you can show others of God's disciples that love even radiating out to non-believers; that all men will know. 
When we can reach out to others as God has reached out to us--even to those we deem unlovable; to those who irritate us, etc, to those we find difficult to love, even when we reach out to them, the image of God gets brighter. The glory of God shines out as it did in Moses' face after he had seen God's glory up there on Mt. Sinai (Exodus 34:29-35).May we all genuinely beam with God's sparkling clear radiance.
Amen.
The End.
~ERC 2015~
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