IMAGE IS EVERYTHING

Our duty as individual Christians and the Church is to reflect the image of Jesus. To do this we reflect those things He desires: love, kindness, patience, justice, humility etc.. To therefore reflect Him as anything else, especially as those things the world loves: pride, appearance, gain, position, riches, is to represent Him as something He is not. The world is more and more gaining the impression that Christians are just like themselves; those that love the world and everything in it, simply because of the fact that they are building great palaces they are calling 'Churches', and are SHOWING, despite their fine sounding words, that they do love what the world loves.

Image is so important to God, and most Churches in the West are now being extremely CARELESS with what image of Christ that they are presenting to the world. God was very careful with the image of Godliness that He presented to the world, and that image was Jesus Himself. How did God present Him? Lowly and in a way that there was nothing of His outward appearance that we should desire Him. How did He present His servants? The Apostle Paul said- 'For it seems to me that God has put us apostles on display at the end of the procession, like those condemned to die in the arena. We have been made a spectacle to the whole universe, to angels as well as to human beings.' (1 Cor 4v9). As individuals and as a Church must learn and hold this lesson dear to our hearts, for in Christ and His servants we see what God desired for His Church this side of eternity- that His glory might be seen in the fruits of the Spirit and His power, and not in outward appearance. God is very interested in showing the world the DIFFERENCE between life and death, and the fact that life comes from the life within us, and not the outward life of the flesh. If God was so jealous for and protective of His image, we must be as well.