Potentiality and the Image of God

“Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule.” (Genesis 1:26)
“He (Christ) is the image of the invisible God.” (Colossians 1:15)
“The god of this age has blinded the minds of unbelievers, so that they cannot see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.” (2 Corinthians 4:4)
“And we, who with unveiled faces all reflect the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into his likeness with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit.” (2 Corinthians 3:18)
“In the same way, let your light shine before men, that they may see your good deeds and praise your Father in heaven.” (Matthew 5:16)

• How would my interactions with people be different if I saw the potential in each and every person?
• Instead of seeing the ugly parts of people and always trying to feel superior to certain people, what if I looked at them the way God looks at them?—as people with God’s image within them, struggling to make this glorious potential shine forth but hindered by the damage that sin does to each of our beings.
• What if instead of judging people as a part of this fallen world, I looked at them with the compassion of Jesus, who saw people as sheep without a shepherd?
• What if instead of lumping people into categories of “us vs. them,” I instead lumped us all into a category of potentiality?—that each of us has the potential to shine as glorious image bearers, that each of us has vast potential to be all that God wants us to be.
• What if, in my desire to share the good news of Jesus Christ with people, I helped them realize that their innate desire to be great was put there by God, but it is being warped into a selfish and prideful thing instead of the potentiality that God has given us for his glory?—that to shine as the glorious image of God is greater than anything we could accomplish on our own.
• What if I did not sneer at human endeavors to improve ourselves and instead affirmed these and tried to redirect them towards God’s end and not our end?
• What if I implored people to give up their selfish attempts at greatness and follow the one who will provide greatness to us?—not for our glory, but for the glory of the one we can more greatly reflect.
• What if I share with people that Jesus, the ultimate image of God, has provided the pathway for the potentiality in each of us to burst forth?—that the gospel is about the restoration of that God-glorifying image in each of us, making us the glorious beings that we are meant to be.

technorati: emerging church, spiritual formation, evangelism