How's Your Image?
Fashion, style, and charm. All of these make up a fine image… or do they? How we look matters, but maybe not in the way we might think.
Celebrities, for example, are deeply concerned about their image. They often work with a publicist to help clean up their appearance after they feel their image has been blemished. The hope is to sway the perception of the public eye and remain popular.
Image is a powerful tool. It represents you and the core source of your values. Your image is the visual representation that typifies you. It’s your likeness or what you bear resemblance to.
In the beginning of time God spoke about image:
So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. ( ).
It is God’s desire to create within you and me the clear understanding that he wants us to be one with him as partakers of his blessing. encourages, “…put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness.”
Consider these five keys as you think about your image:
I – Who am I?
For we are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works.
M – I am made in the likeness of God.
And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness.
A – I am accepted.
For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight.
G – I am greatly loved.
We are more than conquerors through him who loved us.
E – I am eternally redeemed.
In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins.
Reflecting Life
Each time we fellowship with God we mirror our heavenly Father’s image. We bear the beauty of Heaven when we reflect God’s acceptance, love, and redemption to our family and friends.
As the hidden inner person of the heart outshines the exposed outer person of the flesh, we are able to proclaim with Paul:
I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me ( ).
What are your ideas of ways in which we can reflect a Christ-centered image today?
* All Scripture references NIV.
~ Jackie O.
