Commandment #2
Wow! God has blessed us with His son not only to provide us with the gift of salvation, but to also give us a physical image that represents God. When Darrel said that "The face of Christ is the exact representation of the invisible God" my mind was opened to just how crazy cool our God is! It is such an important reminder that Jesus was fully God and fully human and just such a radical, dynamic, undefinable vision of who God is. It is so easy for me to get into the mindset that I know Jesus, but no relationship is ever stagnate and God is so big that there is no way that my idea of Hi will ever come close to capturing all of His glory.
I find it so true that the worldly images of God are limiting in scope, lead us astray, localize God, or are misunderstood over time. God knew, because He created us that we are creatures that imagine, and He calls us to imagine His glory and not to bind ourselves to the images on this earth. He was formless when He descended.
How do these images affect our relationship? That is the question that I keep asking myself. How is the way that I see the cross bring me closer to or further away from God? How does the way that I view a sunset over a calm lake bring me closer to or further away from God? How is the way that I see my relationships with friends and family bring me closer to or further away from God? DO these things put a limit on my relationship and understanding of the full glory of God?! I think that I need to open my imagination and dream again like a child. I analyze things and God cannot be analyzed because God cannot be rationalized. That is my prayer right now. That I can pursue God, through the image of Jesus, with a childlike imagination!
I loved what you said: "I analyze things and God cannot be analyzed because God cannot be rationalized"
ReplyDeleteSo true and such a great reminder. Thanks for sharing Kyler.
Love this post. Like Ariana, I love your phrase God cannot be rationalized. He’s called the logos. The logic. The reason. He is THE REASON we reason but yet we cannot comprehend the reason for faith/life/rationalization is the daily discovery that THE REASON has intimately and personally comprehended us. In other words God can’t be rationalized and yet rationalization by grace perhaps helps us utter “I am wonderfully made and God knows me!” Thx Kyler!
ReplyDeleteKyler, thanks for the post! It made me think of Colossians 1:15-29
ReplyDeleteThe Son is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For in him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things have been created through him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together. And he is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning and the firstborn from among the dead, so that in everything he might have the supremacy. For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross. Once you were alienated from God and were enemies in your minds because of your evil behavior. But now he has reconciled you by Christ’s physical body through death to present you holy in his sight, without blemish and free from accusation— if you continue in your faith, established and firm, and do not move from the hope held out in the gospel. This is the gospel that you heard and that has been proclaimed to every creature under heaven, and of which I, Paul, have become a servant. Now I rejoice in what I am suffering for you, and I fill up in my flesh what is still lacking in regard to Christ’s afflictions, for the sake of his body, which is the church. I have become its servant by the commission God gave me to present to you the word of God in its fullness— the mystery that has been kept hidden for ages and generations, but is now disclosed to the Lord’s people. To them God has chosen to make known among the Gentiles the glorious riches of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.
He is the one we proclaim, admonishing and teaching everyone with all wisdom, so that we may present everyone fully mature in Christ. To this end I strenuously contend with all the energy Christ so powerfully works in me.