Living out our image of God

Here is a great article by Colin Lagerwall on how our image of God causes us to live indifferently towards others.

"Some thoughts on our 'beliefs' and how they affect us, negatively or positively, and how the notion of wanting to be 'more like God' is a trap to our souls ...

If the objective of 'belief' is to change ourselves, then we have been poorly made, and then God Himself, who made us like Him, is 'poorly' ....

I think that the main objective of belief, or the Gospel, is to have our thoughts reconstructed from a dismal or skewed view of ourselves, which has been very much ingrained in us by society and in particular, typical religions of most kinds, and to see what we have lost sight of, and that being our beautiful original 'person' that we have always been, 'covered under' by society's flawed value systems ...

'More of You and less of me' is as dumb as it comes and stems from self-loathing promoted by sin-consciousness, however :

'More of You so I can see more of Me' is about as good as it gets ...

Jesus speaks of this in John 17:22-23 where he says :
"The opinion the Father has of me, is also His thoughts of you, and the love He has for me, is no different to the love He has for you; You are honored without measure for just who you are, and you are loved the most and always will be"

Paul also refers to this when he says 'Take off that wrong (old) way of seeing yourself, and put on (fall into) the new (yet original) mindset, because that is who you really are, that 'old man' is what society and religion has put on you, and it is dung (BS) ...

The Spirit of love and truth shows us our Father as He is, so that we can see that we really are 'a chip off the old block', as is everyone else ..

It then becomes a tad easier to love another as you love yourself, because you see 'another' as a beautiful member of your own family, regardless of what society and religion has ingrained in them, because 'us and them' belongs to the false values of society and religions, but 'We' belong to 'Our' Father and each other ....

The thing with knowing we are made in His likeness, is, just 'what does that look like?'

We have been given such an horrendous image of God via religion, that it either repels us from 'him' because it is an insult to our own souls knowing that we are just not like 'that', or it gives people license to be just like that image (see typical church leadership, leaders of governments, fathers, teachers, etc. operating n the image of 'god' we have presented by the church and other religions) ...

In Jesus, we see God, lover of the outcasts and pulling down the high and mighty; very touchable, lovable, admirable, always pointing to a better way, the way of truth and love ...

Our doctrines are full of the dung that Paul spoke of, and it has tainted and poisoned humanity just like a 'turd in the drinking water' would ... 
But I think things are changing as we are re-evaluating just what this 'image and likeness' looks like, and it certainly challenges to the core those settled on their thrones like the 'god' in their minds ....

God is Love, said John, and Paul opens that up to show what Love is really like : peaceful, gentle, holding no record of wrong, etc ...

When we see people reacting negatively to 'grace', or 'hyper-grace', we are seeing their reactions to the challenge of the 'image' in their minds, the image that they have become very comfortable with, but an image that is based on a lie ...

'Truth and Love' is the currency of God that wipes out any false 'god' in our minds, because He is full of Grace (Love) and Truth, it is who He is, and how He sees us is how we are really are : full of Love and Truth, just like Him ....

The other mythical 'god' that instills fear and manipulation and control is the very thing that keeps humanity living falsely to who we really are, and this false image is what continually perpetuates self-loathing because we live according to the image we see in him/ourselves, and we hate it, so we hate ourselves ....

Until the sunshine of Love and Truth penetrates our self-hatred and we 'see' what He has always seen, a child of love, just like Him ..."



Peace

Reflecting an image

By  Colin Lagerwall

"Our understanding of 'God' reflects off an image in our minds, and by that image we perceive, we determine our own beings for who we are, for we are created in His likeness, and according to that determination of who we are, we live out our lives ....

For example:

Saul killed people by the image of 'God' that he had in his mind...

So did the Crusaders..

Throughout the centuries, many have been stoned and torched because they spoke a language that conflicted with some image of 'God' in their killer's minds...

There is no clearer image of God than that seen in the person of Jesus, who being the express visible Image of the invisible God, whilst experiencing the worst hatred and rejection that anyone could ever experience, responded accordingly to who He is ...

Treated like the trash of the Earth fit only for the rubbish heap, He was stripped of his dignity and nailed naked on a criminal's cross, mocked and jeered at and violently tortured until His body could no longer contain His life .....

He could have retaliated with fiery vengeance and destroyed the whole World and the Universe and every living and inert thing in it, a Universe that He had created with His own hands ....

If that been the Image of God that He had in His mind .....

Moments before Jesus passes, He looks out across the people in front of Him ...

People representing all the peoples of the World that had ever existed ... people blinded by an image of 'God' that they have in their minds, people void of understanding of the true nature of the God whose visible Image they had in their possession hanging on the tree like the damned that they thought He was.....

Had these His perpetrators known that this was their Creator that they had falsely tried and tortured and mocked and jeered and rejected to the point of death, having within their own minds the reflection of the image of the 'God' that had driven them to do this horrific deed against that which they could not comprehend, they would have shrunk back in horror at the retribution that they themselves believed they now deserved; they would have frozen in incomprehensible terror, waiting for that moment as heaven's lightning struck them off the face of existence ...

Yet in that Moment of Moments ....

Jesus looks at the True Image of God in His mind, and seeing the open Face of the One Father of Light and Love and Truth that shines so Gracefully and Beautifully on Mankind, and from that True Image of God in His mind, Jesus responds in the only way that He can, doing what He sees the Father doing  .... Not in vengeful retaliation for rejecting His Son, not in horrific holocaustic destruction of a blind humanity whose distorted image had driven them to act in such a inhumane manner ......

But in the face of the worst rejection that anyone could ever experience, Jesus lifts up His head and unashamedly from within Him, the Voice of Eternal Love Sounds  .........

"Father ..... Forgive them ! ...... they have been blinded by an image of a 'God' that is not You ...... they do not know who You are, for only the Son knows who You are ....only the Son has seen You as You are ...."

"And neither do they know who they are ..... they have only acted in a manner that is congruent with the distorted image of the 'God' in their own minds........"

"Thank you Father that this is not the end for them, but it is the Beginning of the New where they will begin to see You like I see You, for they are in Me and I am in them, and very soon You will raise Me from the dead and they too will see You with New Eyes, they will see an Image that is New to them but it is the Only True Image of God, an Image so beautiful that the whole of Creation basks in it's Smile, and in that Image they will see You and Me, and they will begin to see themselves as they really are, for in that True Image of God is the Likeness in which they were Created .. In Love ...."

"They will Now begin to See with Open Eyes as the Veil that has blinded them to their True Selves is Torn ......"

"Father  .....  It is Done !

Into Your hands I commit My Spirit !"

One of the greatest issues we have in Life is Trust ....trust God...Trust each other, trust you friends, trust your spouse.....

Trust is dependent on one thing, and that is the implicit Trustworthiness of the Person to be trusted, which means that the Integrity of the Person to be trusted must be without question....

Do we ever question why it is that we have to go on courses to increase our faith in God, or even why we choose not to believe in God ?

Why is it that atheists choose to not believe in a God who could have designed the universe and put this whole thing together, and this Person is supposed to love us, yet at the same time He is vengeful and just and must torture Mankind if we do not believe in His Son which He sent...

How dare we reject His Son !!??

Really ? Is this what 'salvation' is about ?

Reject MY Son and I will reject you !??

Is this how we have seen our Father, the God of all Creation and Non-Creation.....

The most accurate depiction of the Nature of God is when our Rejection of God is revealed by the Total acceptance of US by God in the thick of OUR Total rejection of Him ...

Do we trust Him ? Do we dare trust THIS Love, that THIS Love has the capability to Love even when we turn our back on Him ? Really ? Do We ?
Or have we branded Him with our own petty retributions, that if someone does not accept us, we will reject them ?
Is that your God ?
Is That the Image you have in your minds ?
Is THAT the Image you act on ?

Faith works by Love....Infinite Faith works by knowing Infinite Love...a Love that cannot reject, even when Love Himself is rejected !

Look at Jesus, and you will see how Love reacts in the brutal face of rejection ... and when you see His reaction, you see the True Image of God !

"The world needs to realise that we were never rejected orphans after all, but always His precious and accepted beloved sons and daughters, never outcasts having to work our way in, but always in-cluded, and that its ok to take a deep breath, snuggle up and rest in His amazing grace, forever joined, never separted ♥" - Fay Gillbanks Lagerwall