We run our website the way we wished the whole internet worked: we provide high quality original content with no ads. We are funded solely by your direct support. Please consider supporting this project.
Who You Are Reflects the Kind of God You Worship
We always reflect the mental picture of God that we envision, for better or worse. If you have a fear-based picture of God, it will even affect the structure of your brain.
You become the kind of person that you worship. If you have a threatening picture of God, you become threatening. If you have a controlling picture of God you become controlling. Your picture of God shapes the course that your life takes.
What transforms us is what we look at, what we see. The Holy Spirit opens our minds to see the glory of Jesus Christ, and as this happens we are transformed into it. As we behold his love, we become more loving. As we see his peace, we become more peaceful.
Click here to find the full sermon at Gracepointe.
Category: Sermons and Video Clips
Tags: God, Love, Picture of God, Seeing is Believing, The Image of God
Related Reading
Why the “Try Harder” Solution Fails
Mike via Compfight So much social media interaction is shaped by conversations about what people should or should not do or how people should or should not think. This seems to be even worse within Christian social media. What impact does this have? Do our exhortations change things? We know that we are to reflect…
Revolting Against Classism
All fallen societies and religions have a tendency to rank people according to class. All have ways of separating the insiders from the outsiders, the holy from the unholy and the more important people from the less important people. Jesus revolted against classism by the way he lived, a way defined by the Kingdom. Now,…
Challenging the Habit of Judgment
Jesus said, “Do not judge, or you too will be judged. For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you” (Matt 7:2). In our world where we encounter a nearly constant stream of judgments on social media or the news,…
Are We Supposed to Balance Love and Truth?
Often people say, “Yes we must love. But we must balance love with truth.” “Love has its place, but we must not forget God’s wrath.” “Love must never take the place of correct biblical doctrine.” Two points need to be made. First, if we take seriously the biblical teaching that the love command is the…
A Jesus Kind of Church
The church can only be the conduit of God’s love if it stops judging others (See yesterday’s post). This means that it will stop being concerned about its reputation in the eyes of those who practice this religious judgment. The only reputation we need be concerned with is to have the one Jesus had. He…
When Our Images of God are Faulty
I’m fleshing out the third proclamation of the ReKnew Manifesto, which challenges us to rethink our conception of God. In the previous post I noted that, since our relationship with God is mediated through our mental picture of him, our image completely determines how we feel about God and what our relationship with him will…