Bulletin April 2021
by Bruce Billington
Being Christlike
An author I enjoy, makes this comment,
Just show me what you love, and I’ll show you what you’re going to be like five years from now. Show me what your treasure is, what you give energy to – and I’ll show you what you’ll become (The Divine Dance – Richard Rohr).
What has this got to do with who God is? Actually, everything because God loves His creation, including you and me. And as we become what we love, so God, in Christ, became what He loves – everything human, including becoming a vulnerable baby, totally dependent on His parents just like we are at birth. This is a major statement that says, “I like you so much, I want to be one with you.”
As we approach Easter I must confess to having some disappointments with the way it is often presented. Although it is true that one of Jesus’s major tasks in the Easter experience is to solve the sin problem that existed between humans and God, it is too easy to see this as a transaction to appease an angry Ruler, rather than the expression of an ongoing love affair, a deep desire to enable us to have true communion with Him and to enter into the life experience with Him, that we can all enjoy on this amazing planet. He even went further than this by granting his Holy Spirit the right to actually dwell within our being and become His indwelling temple (1 Corinthians 6:19).
Sadly, all of this has failed to appease humanity. One of the key reasons is that we resist having any restraints placed upon us. More and more in the Western world today the things that were once considered good are now being called evil. Gender, sexuality, considering others before ourselves (stand back for a woman today at your peril), have been replaced with entertainment filled with violence and humiliation towards one another and a general degrading view of any form of weakness.
What all of this is actually stating is that we no longer accept that every individual is sacred, created in the image of God. We offer no one any degree of sacred status just because they are a person, yet Jesus required that we offer everyone such a status for exactly this reason.
Some terrible things are carried out by human beings – and yes, they are inexcusable and should be dealt with to the fullest extent of the crime. In fact, our tendency to make excuses for them is often inexcusable in itself. But the fact does remain – that every individual is created in the image of God and is someone Jesus came to save.
If we carefully consider this we are confronted by the love, kindness and the forbearance of God and this is disarming – at least for me. It means I know longer have the freedom to choose who I show respect to, what cultures I feel most comfortable around, and what subgroups I like and dislike.
It all gets back to which tree we choose to feed from most. We have the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil and we have the Tree of Life. The Tree of Life is warm, welcoming and full of love and acceptance and its leaves are for healing (Revelations 22:2). Yes, it does have justice there too but we are told that its mercy triumphs over its judgement (James 2:13). It is this tree that Christ calls His people to gather around. He came to us so that He could be the first of many brothers and sisters who will relate with the Father just like He did (Romans 8:29).
God waits for our personal response to His presence. He will not allow us to relate to Him as an “it.” He longs to be known by us. A.W. Tozer says this,
Over against all this cloudy vagueness stands the clear scriptural doctrine that God can be known in personal experience. A loving personality dominates the Bible, walking among the trees of the garden breathing fragrance over every scene. Always a living person is present, speaking, pleading, loving, working, and manifesting Himself whenever and wherever His people have the receptivity necessary to receive the manifestation.
This is the God who we have found in Christ Jesus. This is the God that He wants us to reveal by way of our behaviour, to the world (Matthew 5:16). May we get to know Him and be more like Him each day.
May God bless you,
Bruce Billington.