The people of God have long been a forgetful people. If you’ve ever read through the Old Testament, even just a chapter here and there, you might have noticed a recurring theme: over and over, God tells his people to get rid of idols. Have you ever wondered why?
Sure, we find it odd that the people couldn’t stop seeking after powerless statues, why they’d inevitably decide to melt down their jewelry to make more or collect some from foreign neighbors and stash them in their tents. But what about God? Why couldn’t he just let it go? It was almost like the people couldn’t help it. Why did God make such a big deal about some trinkets and insist his people get rid of every last one? Was he really that jealous?
Yes, God was jealous. But it’s not the kind of jealousy we are most familiar with, the kind rooted in insecurity, selfishness, pride, or control. God loves us with a pure and selfless love. He doesn’t insist on our complete devotion because he needs it. He insists because we need it.
What We Were Created For
Humans were made to worship. The idea might make some of us uncomfortable, but it is part of who we are. We all long to be a part of something bigger than ourselves, to find something to admire and devote ourselves to. Even if we never set foot in a church or temple, each one of us will, without fail, find something to worship.
We were made to worship because we were made to discover the One who is worthy of our worship. You were born for relationship with God. He delights in you, and he wants you to delight in him, too. He set that ache within your heart so that you would find him, and be utterly fulfilled by him. He has been at work in your life all along, through every beautiful gift and difficult trial, hoping each one would draw your heart to his. Do you see it? He is the one your heart has always been searching for, and he so desperately wants you to discover the happiness that apart from him will always be elusive.
This is why idols cannot be tolerated. They are stumbling blocks to the one thing that matters most- knowing God.
Idols lie. They tell us there is something else that can do what God does. They tell us that worship is impersonal, a simple exchange for the purpose of achieving our ends. They lead us to sacrifice things that were never meant to be sacrificed. They let us delude ourselves into thinking that we can control life by catering to the whims of gods we cannot trust. They leave us lonely, cozying up to a cardboard cutout instead of experiencing the true and beautiful love story we were meant to live.
Sadly, it takes some people until their deathbeds to discover the truth we could all embrace today: When it comes down to it, the one thing that matters most in life is knowing God. If this is true, then it means the most dangerous things are the things that prevent us from knowing him as he really is. And the most beautiful things? They’re the things that reflect God as he really is to a world that needs to know him.
Friend, let me tell you a secret that can forever change how you see yourself:
You are that reflection.
You were made to be the loveliest thing in the world, because God made you to look like him, and he is so very beautiful and good. God made the heavens and the earth to show us what he is like, and he declared it good, but when he made people in his very own image, he said it was very good. Like a child who bears a striking resemblance to his parent, you were made to be the spitting image of your Father, and he is a perfect and devoted father, the kind worth taking after.
We don’t get to make idols because we will make them badly, but God himself is the one person qualified to make his own self-portrait. And he did. Friend, you are the graven image! Not an idol to be worshipped, but a masterpiece made to inspire awe for its Creator. You were made to reflect the image of God better than anything else in this world can! Just to be who you were made to be, living for the one you were made to be living for, and inspiring others to do the same? That’s the purpose-filled, passionate life you were made to live!
“For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.”
Ephesians 2:10
“In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven.”
Matthew 5:16
Being Re-formed into His Likeness
We can see, of course, as we look around– at the world, at the church, and in the mirror– that this beautiful reflection has been muddied by sin. Instinctively, we know this isn’t right. Even those who say they don’t believe in God at all will be quick to point out that those who follow Jesus are supposed to look like him, but so often we do not, and this is a tragedy.
Isaiah 64:8
But now, O LORD, you are our Father; we are the clay, and you are our potter; we are all the work of your hand.
“Therefore, if anyone cleanses himself from what is dishonorable, he will be a vessel for honorable use, set apart as holy, useful to the master of the house, ready for every good work.”
-2 Tim. 2:21
How can we be formed into a better reflection of God? How do we know what he looks like and what we’re meant to look like?
If we want to reflect our Maker well, as we were made to, we need to submit to the process of sanctification, like a canvas or a piece of clay that allows the Artist to continue shaping it until it reflects the vision he has in mind. But as creatures given the gift of free will, this will only happen when we allow it to. If we choose to submit to the Maker’s design, then we look to God’s Word, which tells us what he is like and what he intends for us, and do what it says.
“For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man who looks intently at his natural face in a mirror. For he looks at himself and goes away and at once forgets what he was like. But the one who looks into the perfect law, the law of liberty, and perseveres, being no hearer who forgets but a doer who acts, he will be blessed in his doing.”
-James 1:23-25
“Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth.”
-John 17:17
Jesus is the image of the invisible God- he showed us what God is like in a form we could see. To be a Christian is to become like Christ, and to become like him is to be what we were made to be- the image of God, the light of the world. We need to let God chisel away our rough edges until we look like him. It might feel uncomfortable, even painful at times, but there will be sweet relief when we see our broken pieces remade and find ourselves becoming ever more the living, breathing work of art we were designed to be.
“And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another…”
-2 Cor. 3:18
Each one of us was made by God, for God, and, above all, to be with God. Not one of us will ever be truly fulfilled apart from him. We find what we’ve been searching for when we find him and when we allow him to finish forming us into who he designed us to be– a magnificent reflection of his beauty and goodness.
Will you place yourself into the Artist’s hand and allow him to shape you further into his likeness? When you do, you will become who you were made to be… and it is very good.
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