Day 28 - Issue 22
Genesis 1:26 NLT
…to be like us…
I am growing tired of TV. Not that I don’t like a good movie, more the way in which things are framed. News reporting seems so very devoid of hope, and issues reduced to points of polarisation. This creates the shrill sound of perpetual argument. There’s little modelling of how anyone moves from their declared position and settles on shared interests. It also denies space for the richness of religious and cultural heritage. So ‘terrorist’ is now a synonym for ‘Muslim’, ‘narrow-minded bigot’ for ‘Christian’. This is the failure of news that has laid the foundations for fake news.
Also in popular TV, sex is reduced to a simple satisfaction of sexual appetites. Rarely is sexuality presented as making love. Each participant appears merely to satisfy a fleeting lust. Since we are created in the likeness of God, not the same as image, we have the capacity to choose to live demonstrating the characteristics of God in the earth. Godly living itself reflects the reality of the kingdom. It provides a foretaste of eternity.
God has set eternity in our hearts (Ecclesiastes 3:11). With rationality gifted to humanity, we can choose how we might choose to live: in pursuit of God or of self. If it’s the latter we are in danger. Humanity without God lacks all basis and means for moral behaviour.
God’s intention is that I might apply my resemblance of God to the practice of godliness. The epistles are full of encouragement that we are to focus on the way of life as expressed in Jesus and order our behaviour in accord with God’s ways. We have recourse to repentance and forgiveness for we repeatedly fail. But this is not our excuse to give up.
QUESTION: In what ways does God want to grow his likeness in you?
PRAYER: Lord, I confess my failings and all the times I have acted against your will. Conform me and mould me into the likeness of your Son.
