Status Updates From Iconic: Being God's Image i...

As you grow in your relationship with Jesus, the fruit of the Spirit will help you see the ways God is changing you. Your faith in Jesus has made you new. God has given you a new identity in Christ, he is renewing your heart so you desire the things that please him, and he is molding you into his image.

REVIEW: Reading this book make me realize that the "image of God" carries lots of aspect in the Christian life. This book covered a lot, I mean A LOT. My prayer is that we go down on our knees and humble ourselves before God and as Him to help us be a good image bearers that He wants us to be.

What’s the difference between Jesus as the image of God and people as the image of God? Jesus does not merely bear God’s image, he is the fullness of God in person. If we are thumbprints, then Jesus is the thumb.
If we are mirrors, then he is the face looking into it that we reflect. If we hope to be iconic of God, then Jesus is the one we point to.

The gospel is good news that God saves sinners. It’s an announcement
about who Jesus is and what he’s done to redeem and restore his image-bearers from sin so they will live in the steadfast love of God for eternity. Without the gospel, trying to live an iconic life is an exercise in self-righteous effort.

Living as icons of God in this world means we are ambassadors of Christ, pleading with everyone to be reconciled to God and restored as icons who radiate with the glory of God.

Bearing God’s image leads us to walk in justice and to oppose injustice,
because we know how much we have received through the mercy of God and we are committed to being agents of reconciliation in this world and the next.

When it comes to the big picture of understanding suffering, we need to begin with what we know for sure: God is holy, God is love, God is merciful, and God created people in his image. That means we can trust his judgment. We can trust his almighty rule over creation, even when we are suffering. Sin

Faith doesn’t make our questions or doubts go away. It doesn’t sprinkle magic fairy dust around us that will make us happy and comfortable. But it does anchor our security in who God is, and faith guides us to bear his image in a way that reflects confidence in his goodness and power at all times.

The gospel’s promise of union with Christ leads us to pray differently. We pray with confidence and assurance that God hears us. Christians don’t need to earn God’s attention. We are already united with Jesus Christ, the
second Person of the Trinity, by faith. And so, we bring our requests, praises, laments, and confessions before God with honesty, humility, and hope because we pray as dearly loved sons and daughters

If faith is the string that unites people and God, then prayer is the act of strumming the string of faith to make it sing with music.

Who you are individually matters. And who we are as a Christian community matters. As gospel-shaped people, one important way we represent the Lord to an onlooking world is the way we confess our sin and repent when we fail.

One aspect of what it means to be created in the image of God that’s easily overlooked is our corporate image: who we are as the people of God and how we bear God’s image together.

We all crave intimacy: to be fully known and fully loved. Sex doesn’t create intimacy; it’s an expression of it. Sex is a way for a husband and wife to affirm their full and complete acceptance of one another. But so many
people today treat sex like it’s a shortcut toward intimacy or as just another way to have a good time. God wants so much more for you than that.

The Bible’s message about gender and sexuality is holy and good, so we cannot simply dismiss the biblical teaching as outdated because it’s become unpopular or because we want to be accepting of our friends. We
should be patient and compassionate toward those who struggle with their sexuality or gender identity, even as we seek to help them bear God’s image faithfully.

The big picture of the Bible’s message about marriage is that it represents God’s intimacy with his image-bearers, and this message is conveyed through the union of two different but complementary lovers coming together in the covenant of marriage.

Christians care about guarding the dignity of marriage between a man and a woman because marriage is a theological symbol of the gospel. Rejecting biblical
sexuality is a rejection of God’s good creation.

If we are going to be faithful icons of God, we need to have a biblical theology of sex and marriage because they show us what God’s personal and intimate love for us looks like.

Your relationship with yourself is strengthened by remembering what you are as a human being, created in God’s image. You can endure hardships and suffering in this life because you have great confidence in who God is, who you are, and what’s to come for you.

For Christians, the reason we love others has nothing to do with seeking good karma or earning a seat at heaven’s table. The Bible begins with our identity as men and women who are created in the image of God. Therefore we have an obligation to treat one another with dignity and honor.