our worth: god's image

our worth: god's image

(just writing to a general audience this time)

If any two people could represent opposite ends of the spectrum, it's Debbie and I. I look at life, and go about my schedule in a random haphazard way. She approaches it with a steadfast order that rivals any administrator out there. I can make out the best laid plans, and charts, and yet within a day's time, be totally off the schedule. She struggles with seeing the whole overall plan, but excels in the details. She alphabetizes, organizes, and arranges items and schedules with an ease that amazes me. There isn't one area in my house, or life that runs by any sort of order or regularity. We are the true definition of opposites. I'm sure our names are under the examples of that word in the dictionary!

She has two children, and I have seven. Within those 9 humans we see 9 very different personalities and behaviors. Of course, there are similarities. The great minds of our times have come up with various ways to categorize personalities, and learning styles etc down to a workable few. But even with those limited combinations, there still are quite extreme opposites in the various ones. So what does it mean we are made in the image of God? Does God have a mulit-personality disorder? Ha, of course not! So, then what does it exactly mean?

{I'm not quite sure how to say this part.. so i'm going to ramble and edit it later!}

This is one of the most exciting 'discoveries' I have made this year. Who I am, not only the spiritual part, is a unique part of God's full personality. Debbie's tendencies, abilties, and personality is a representation of part of God's full personality. All of my randomness to the opposite pole of Debbie's orderlyness and everything inbetween make up the full personality of God. I do believe that's why he says to be a community; a body. Because when we split up, when we segregate, when we only fellowship with like minded people, we are missing out on part of who God is.

Think of it in terms of light. Shine a beam of light and you will see a just a plain, clear beam of light. Shine that same beam through a prisim and all of a sudden you see a rainbow. Use other means of looking at that light and you get an extreme array of colors ours eyes can see, and even more that we can't. And yet all these make up that one clear stream of light. All the variety of the light doesn't detract from what the light is; in fact, it makes up the full light. Take only one or two of the colors, or the other waves and you break the pure light down. And yet mix them all in and you get a seemlying endless amount of light, power, and color.

What does that mean for us? It means that everyone of us is needed and wanted exactly how we are, for exactly what we can offer, for exactly what we can accomplish to represent the fullness of God's image. Yes, God is a God of order, but He is also a God of randomness. If you have any doubt of that, just take one look at the platupus! God rarely deals with you and I in the same organized fashion. Rarely can we say, God did this last year, thus He will do it again this year and for years to come exactly the same way. Yes, God is immutable. Yes, God innate character is unchanging. But his actions vary, and His methods have changed over time. So, both of our personalities show the different parts of God.


There are some denominations that take the verse, "God is a God of order" and have created an idea of God that is one faceted. :God the Creator had a purpose and accomplished it; The God of order doesn't like chaos; The God of the Bible doesn't like randomness: They have taken that one verse and have made man-made laws or doctrines saying to be godly means we are always controlled and organized. Now these might be good goals to work towards but they don't repesent a more godly lifestyle than those who are more random. On the other swing of the pendulum are the groups who say that they won't make up any firm schedule or order of events in a church service because they want it to be fresh and ordered by the Holy Spirit. They look down on the literagy and orderly forms that other's have in their expression of worship. We need to get to a point, that as long as Jesus is glorified, the mode or method is just that... only a method. And in the bigger picture of things, each way points us to a part of God's attributes.

Your worth is secure because at the base of every action, every disposition, every personality trait, is a portioned representation of God himself. This is one reason we as limited humans, will never fully understand God. Because he is so mulitfaceted and seemingly opposite that our minds can't comprehend it. But without you, without your personlity, without the traits that you have and express; without that part God wouldn't be full. Just as the light would be less if the color blue was missing, heaven forbid, the full representation of God would be missing without the part that you represent

Our worth

Our worth

The Basics

Our worth: Based on God’s love for us:

This is a hard one to write because, as much as it's true, when you are low, feeling alone, and worthless this is a very hard truth to grasp. The first thought often is, "If God loves me, why is He allowing/doing this to me? Why, if He is my Salvation, doesn't He save me out of this situation? Why does He choose to let me hurt?"
The answer, if not based on the Truth of the Bible comes back in a few different forms.

1. God must not be totally ‘for’ me
2. I must not be worth Him protecting me
3. He must not be able to protect me, thus not as powerful as I thought
4. He must not be as good as I thought
5. He’s not a personal God, thus my problems aren’t big enough for Him to notice.

All of those statements come back to challenge the deity or the attributes of God.

1. God is omniscient: He knows what is going on. He fully encompasses not only the universe, but the workings of each atom. You are not escaping his notice. Every movement, every thought, every decision is completely at his attention. When it comes to him noticing you, He has tunnel vision and ‘only’ sees you.
2. God is omnipresent: He is everywhere. At the very outer edges of the universe, to the depths of the ocean to the darkest hellhole in the earth. He says He will never leave you. He says there is no where you can escape His love. He Is With You.
3. God is omnipotent: There is nothing He can’t do. No rock he can’t move. No problem He can’t fix. No situation beyond His hand. Nothing has jurisdiction above Him. He is supreme and every atom pays homage to Him. No one, no demon, no principalities or dominions have any ability to accomplish anything without His permission.
4. God is Love: I chose this attribute because it balances out a lot of our ‘fears’ of God. It’s not that God has love, or can love us; He IS Love. Whatever we can grasp about human love, whatever our weak definitions of love are, He surpasses them all. Thus, there is nothing He can allow, or do that isn’t totally enveloped in Love.
5. God will be glorified: Everything that God allows is to bring His church to a closer imitation of His Son, and to glorify Himself. He will not sacrifice one for the other. Both will be accomplished. Because these two goals are the primary motivation for God through love, sometimes the situations He allows seem to hurt and be totally contrary to His nature to allow. But we can be assured by understanding all these attributes of God, that He will not waste someone on a situation, or a situation on a person. Every action, purpose and situation is orchestrated to work His plans.

These represent only a fraction of the attributes that are found through out the Bible describing God. But I will use these to explain my ideas. How does understanding these truths show me that I’m worth something or that God loves me? Sometimes even if someone shows you truth it still comes down to deciding to believe it. Sometimes seeing it logically and accepting it even if it doesn’t seem like it, is the way we have to walk through tough times. God is love with not one drop of darkness in Him. He can’t do evil, He can’t do things spitefully to hurt us, and He can’t just ‘teach us a lesson’. When the Bible says that God loves you, it’s with the purest type of Love there ever has been. As we’ve stated, He is intimately aware of every facet of your life, coupled that with pure love and the motivation to bring you closer to Him and bring Himself Glory, we can rest assured that even in the midst of the wildest storms, whether in real life, or in our minds, He is holding it all together.

ii. Our image is part of God’s character no matter who we are

iii. Our value is intrinsic

Love

i. Fall in love with God- the more He’s real in your heart, the more you’ll see your worth.

ii. Even if no one else agrees, or loves you.. love yourself.

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Comment from a friend about this section:
*julie* says:
this is the first point under the heading 'our worth'..
Lyd says:
I like how you flow everything together. You have a great writing style that's easy to understand
Lyd says:
for a book, though, something like this begs to be expanded
*julie* says:
haha.. i was thinking htat too.. that this might need to be the intro to a fuller chapter..
Lyd says:
yeah
Lyd says:
there's tons of stuff to cover in the whole God loving us for His glory
*julie* says:
which is scarey.. because i'm not sure I have the knowledge to expand it fully..
Lyd says:
um...philosophically you probaly don't need more
*julie* says:
sometimes what i 'know' is just by faith...and hard to put into words.
Lyd says:
Stories and examples would probably do it
*julie* says:
ah.. good point.
Lyd says:
I felt you said everything necessary there
Lyd says:
it was all tied together, simple, deep, and easy to understand
Lyd says:
it's just dead, though, you know
Lyd says:
I have no pictures or images in my head to anchor it to
*julie* says:
ah... interesting..