God-glorifying Image Bearers

While preparing this article, I was drawn to the word “glorify” in our church mission statement: “To glorify God by living the gospel and making disciples to reach the world for Christ”. I then chanced upon a podcast about God’s glory by the Bible Project. In it they explored the idea of glory, linking it to being made in the image of God. The example of a statue made in the image of the person the people are trying to honour stuck out for me.

A statue is built to glorify the person it portrays, wordlessly might I add. We human beings are made by God, in His image, to portray what He is like to those around us, in ours words and actions. And everything we do or say, can and should glorify Him, anywhere and everywhere.

For example, if Jesus was a banker, what would He be like in the banking world? Would He perhaps build a banking system that defies what banking today looks like? – I think of the Year of Jubilee (Leviticus 25:1-13) when I think of God’s potential banking system. In that system, the margin between the rich and the poor is bridged every 50 years. The poor are given a chance to, in a sense, start over; the odds are not stacked against them generation to generation.

And if Jesus was a lawyer, how would the ways in which He defended the weak and poor be different? This is already happening – I think of lawyers who defend the oppressed, the powerless and the voiceless – defending others against those who pervert the law for their own selfish gains.

I believe that in every vocation (excluding those that outrightly go against God’s moral law), we can glorify God; i.e., reflect His character, reflect the original way His kingdom on earth would have looked like if sin had not come into the picture.

As you are reading this, you might be waiting to read a  3-step methodology to glorifying God. But if I can appeal to you, simply get rooted in the truth, the Word. As you do so, ask the Spirit of God, who is Love, to fill you with God’s agape love, and to guide and empower you. Empower you to lead a God glorifying life, loving Him and loving others. A life that points others back to Him. Overtly and covertly.

Be a strategically placed, living breathing bearer of God’s image; revealing God’s goodness to others, the reality of who He is, and how the world was meant to be – God’s original design. In so doing, intentionally raise up others to live boldly, differently, strategically for the Lord. In that way, we can truly glorify God as His image bearers.

Sister Clarine Tan