You’ve probably heard this before, but the Christian life is an already and not yet experience.
“You have put off the old self with its practices and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator. (Col. 3:9–10).”
When a person is born again (cf. John 3:3; 1 Peter 1:3) something decisive has happened – past tense. The old self has been put off and a new self has been put on. But it also begins a process and progression of being renewed in knowledge after the image of our creator. While sin did not erase the image of God in us, it has twisted and corrupted it. So the ongoing process of salvation (or, sanctification) is an image-of-God-restoration-project.
In his book The Worship Pastor, Zac Hicks points out how this process of discipleship is helped by our weekly pattern of gathering to worship.
“You can think of a disciple as an idolater who has been ‘factory recalled’ by God. Discipleship is God’s reclamation of that misdirected worship – loving other things in the place of God. When we gather to worship, we are being equipped as disciples by realigning our loves toward God.”
Or as Paul describes it to the Corinthians, we are “being transformed into the same image (of our Lord Jesus) from one degree of glory to another (2 Cor. 3:18).”
This Sunday Rob Lister will be preaching Luke 20:19-26 (which has very much to do with the implications of being God’s image bearers) and Kenny Clark will be leading our sung worship. Would you pray for each as they prepare? And ask the Lord to continue His image restoration project in each of our hearts.
See you Sunday, Grace. Come hungry!
SONG OF THE WEEK
Rich in Love by Grace Kids Adventure Week
I will exalt You, my God and King
I will praise Your name forever and ever
All of my days I will praise and sing
And extol Your name forever