Focus: Reflectors of Christ!

Text: Gen.1:27

"So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him…"

As human beings, God created us in His image to represent Him on earth and to reflect Him to all of creation. As created beings we have the divine mandate to mirror our creator here on earth. Also, as believers in Christ, Christ redeemed us to represent Him in this world, and we are being transformed into His likeness to reflect Him here on earth. 

In Isaiah 43:1, God says, "But now thus saith the LORD that CREATED thee, O Jacob, and he that FORMED thee, O Israel, Fear not: for I have REDEEMED thee, I have CALLED thee by thy name; thou art MINE." In verse 7, he says, "Even every one that is CALLED by my name: for I have CREATED HIM FOR MY GLORY, I have FORMED him; yea, I have MADE him." The highlighted words in this Scriptures reveal a lot to us. God created, formed, made, called, and redeemed us, and God says, "I created him for my glory… You are mine." 

He owns us both by creation and by redemption, and He made us to reflect His glory.

God's original intent is for us to look like Him - to resemble and reflect Him, and also to represent Him in His own universe. Paul tells the Galatian believers, "My little children, of whom I travail in birth again until Christ be formed in you" (Gal.4:19). Christ wants to take shape in us. He doesn't want to look unrecognized or unrecognizable in us. He wants the world to see Him through us. He wants us to be His lookalikes. John tells us that when we see Christ, that we shall look like Him. He says, "When he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is" (1Jh.3:2). 

When we look at Jesus Christ, we shall marvel at the resemblance. We are lookalikes with Christ.

Paul writes, "For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren" (Rom.8:29). In 2Cor.4:4, he tells us that Christ is "the image of God." In Col.1:15, he describes Christ as the one "who is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of every creature." The writer of Hebrews describes Him as He "who being the brightness of his glory, and the express image of his person…" (Heb.1:3).

Paul says concerning us who believe in Christ, "And have put on the new man, which is renewed in knowledge after the image of him that created him… But we all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord" (Col.3:10; 2Cor.3:18).

As believers in Christ, our role on earth is to represent Christ wherever we find ourselves and to reflect Him to the world. Anything short of that is a miscarriage of the essence and mission of Christianity. 

It is essential that we shine as light wherever we are at every point in time. We glow with God's glory and radiate the joy of salvation.

Christ will not settle for anything less of us. He doesn't want to see us, and all He sees is a shapeless Christ. He doesn't want to see Himself in us, looking like an amoeba - completely unrecognized. Os Guinness said that "the problem with Western Christians is not that they aren't where they should be but that they aren't what they should be where they are." 

Let us search our hearts and tell ourselves the truth, for truth alone is our liberator. Stop being the wrong thing in a right place. Stop misrepresenting Christ wherever you are. Stop giving a wrong impression of Christ in your own corner of the world. Allow Christ to be fully formed in you! People in your space want to see Jesus Christ in you in words and deeds, in beliefs and behaviors, and in your being and doings. You are Christ's representative and reflector in this world. That is the essence of living as a Christian.

by Bishop Moses E. Peter