The Image of His Holiness

“Speak unto all the congregation of the children of Israel, and say unto them, Ye shall be holy: for I the Lord your God am holy.” – Leviticus 19:2

How amazing that so much can be said in so little! In twelve words God describes the foundation and purpose for our striving for holiness in our walk with Him. Here He is talking to the Children of Israel, but since we are counted as Abraham’s seed through faith (see Galatians 3:29), it applies to us as well!

God commands us to be holy, if for no other reason than because He, our Lord, is holy. There must be something in our lives that sets us apart from all others. God has chosen holiness. He says this over and over in the Old Testament, and when He lovingly provided Christ to us as our way of Salvation, He also provided the Holy Spirit to convict and teach us in the ways of His holiness.

God created us to be reflections of His Image. “So God created man in His own image, in the image of God created He him; male and female created He them.” – Genesis 1:27

When God chose us as His people (John 15:16), not only were we to be reflections of His physical image, but we were also to be reflections of the glory of His holiness.

“But we all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord.” – 2 Corinthians 3:18

What an amazing and humbling responsibility and privilege we have as God’s children to reflect the wonders of His Holiness!

“I beseech you therefore brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service. And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God.” – Romans 12:1-2

How Our Relationship with God Affects Our Sibling Relationships - Part 3

When we decide to faithfully pursue a right relationship with the Lord, we will begin to see His blessing pour out and help us in many areas of our lives. As we begin to see and feel how our attitude and response towards our siblings change, there is something we should be mindful of.

Our relationship with God affects ourselves only. We cannot always expect the Lord to work in a sibling's life in the same area, at the same time as us. There are two aspects of this we need to be warned in.

Number one, it is our duty to keep our eyes focused on Christ and our relationship with Him, and not look at anyone else. Scripture tells us that "but they measuring themselves by themselves, and comparing themselves among themselves, are not wise." (2Corinthians 10:12)

Not only is it not wise, it can be dangerous for us and our relationship with Christ to compare ourselves with someone else, especially our siblings. If we feel we are doing better than them, we can easily fall into the category of becoming prideful, and then if we feel we are so much below others, we can become discouraged and despairing of our walk with Christ.

Number two is that many times, especially when we first begin to respond in the way we should to our siblings, they may not understand or take too kindly to the change. I know for myself, when I was angry and struggling, nothing irked me more than to see one of my siblings sweetly following Christ. I unconsciously did my best to tear that person down or to show some fault in them. Just as we saw in the verse about Cain last week, someone who is not necessarily doing all they could to work on their relationship with the Lord, may have a negative response to someone who is.

"And wherefore slew he him? Because his own works were evil, and his brother's righteous." (1 John 3: 12)

There is a very good possibility that our siblings will not respond very graciously to our cheerful or loving responses, but we must be prepared to follow the Lord's leading anyway, no matter what our siblings may do or say.

In conclusion, I'll have to speak with King Solomon.

"Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter; Fear God, and keep his commandments; for this is the whole duty of man." (Ecclesiastes 12:13)

If all we do is look to God and be totally and constantly pursuing Him and follow His leading in every area of our lives, we are accomplishing His calling. This will not only give us complete peace and fulfillment, but will ensure a godly response in our relationships with our siblings.

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Posts from the Past

Every Wednesday I post something that I have written in the past. It may have been written a long time ago, or a very, very long time ago! :-D So please forgive any mistakes!

"Beautiful Eyes"

I had been reading a lot of artists who worked on real life paintings, and saw many pictures from artists who were just starting, so I geared up the courage to do a real life painting. In the past years I limited myself to still-life, floral, and landscapes, so this was a HUGE leap for me!

I sketched my outline (the first time I’ve EVER done that! Terrible of me, huh?) :-D, and began to apply pastel. I did the eyes first, I had a book to guide me and give me some helps, and I prayed a bit, so I don’t know why I was surprised when they actually turned out pretty good! I was greatly encouraged, and commenced the rest of the snow leopard cub.

When I was finished, I was actually kind of frustrated and disappointed. I had some trouble with the paper filling with pigment to quickly, so I wasn’t able to get all the layers in I wanted. My proportions were off, I didn’t have the colors I wanted, so all in all, I just got discouraged and said I would never do a real-life painting again!

That night as I was getting ready for bed, the room was dark, besides the soft light escaping from the closet door. In the beam of the light I caught a glance of the eyes of that cub. It was almost as if they were reproaching me, and I felt the Lord’s still small beckoning. As I stood over that painting, God chastised me for being disappointed. 

“I have blessed you with a beautiful gift, but you cannot expect every aspect of it to come easily. Even with great talent comes different times and portions of learning so one can better themselves for My glory!”

I looked again at the cub’s eyes and I thought, “Who am I to be disappointed when God obviously wants me to work to glorify Him with my gift? I’ve learned at least one thing with this painting, and that’s those eyes!”

Now when I think about it, I find I was probably responding very similarly to the servant in the parable Jesus told about the talents (Matthew 25:13-29). He gave three different servants three different amounts of talents. Two of the servants worked hard to develop the talents their master had given them, and gradually multiplied their talents. One servant did nothing with his talent, and when the master came back was severely punished.

It’s almost as if I was sitting there with this talent, expecting to be pleasing the Lord when I wasn’t putting any work to develop and multiply my skills. What a sober lesson for me, to realize that, in order for God to develop me how He wants to in EVERY area of my life, I must be willing to take the step (pick up the pastel, learn the difficult part of that song, practice that new technique) and make an effort to work and develop those areas that He has blessed me in.

Praise God for the way His Holy Spirit works in our lives!

God IS Love!!!

I have been reading through 1 Corinthians almost daily this month, and every time I came to 1 Corinthians 13 (The Love Chapter), I would just read over it with almost a “ho-hum” attitude. I had heard it so many times before, I could almost recite it!

But when I was reading it a few days ago, a phrase popped into my mind.

“God is Love!”

Wow, that was an interesting thought! If God IS love, then those with their focus on Him will have that love spreading through their entire lives! If we were to focus on God, He will fulfill those attributes in us!

“The light of the body is the eye: if therefore thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light.” Matthew 6:22

I decided I had to find that verse, so I looked it up. It fit with the rest of the puzzle!

“And we have known and believed the love that God hath to us. God is love; and he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and God in him.”

1 John 4:16

I know of too many girls, including myself, who have gotten bogged down, discouraged, and depressed with trying to show every aspect of love (charity) mentioned in 1 Corinthians 13. It may have worked for a while, and at one time I even prayed through every aspect mentioned! But just as God does not want us to live bound by the law (the commandments given in the Old Testament), I’m sure He does not want us to live bound by the attributes of love!

He really makes it quite simple! John 15 talks about us abiding in the vine, and just as a branch in a vine cannot force himself to grow, neither can we. It is as we receive nurturing and strength from the Vine (God) that we naturally, almost unconsciously, grow and produce fruit (some of which are the fruits of love).

“But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you.”

Matthew 6:33

As we focus on the Lord, and build our relationship with Him, He will begin to work and make Himself known in every area of our lives. Especially the area of love! God IS love! Love is what makes Him different from all other “gods”, and love is how He manifests Himself in us and to others!

Praise God for His amazing love, and for how He works in our lives when we are surrendered to Him!

How Our Relationship with God Affects Our Sibling Relationships - Part 2

As we have already seen, a life lived for Christ will have a wonderfully positive effect in our response to those around us, namely our siblings. The Scriptures are full of examples of this. I love the story of Joseph as it gives us a prime example in how Joseph followed the Lord, and he was able to demonstrate remarkable love and forgiveness to his brothers.

But just as our relationship with our siblings can be affected in a positive light by our relationship with God, the opposite is also true.

When we are lazy in our devotions, or turn a deaf ear to the Lord's prompting for more study, Bible memorization, or prayer, we distance ourselves from the only One who can help us to have true love and appreciation for our siblings and those around us.

I'm sure we have all had times when we were struggling with a specific concept or conviction, and we found ourselves in a very touchy and irritable mood. Our responses to our siblings were probably not as they should have been, and we find that we had dug a pit of hard and hurt feelings that we later have to go and try to fill with repentance and apologies.

There are many things we do wrong that affect our relationship with the Lord that will also negatively affect our relationships with our siblings.

"Only by pride cometh contention; but with the well advised is wisdom." (Proverbs 13:10)

"No man that warreth entangleth himself with the affairs of this life; that he may please him who hath chosen him to be a soldier" (2 Timothy 2:4)

"Therefore to him that knoweth to do good, and doeth it not, to him it is sin." (James 4:17)

These are just a few, but as we can see, there are a number of things that can cause conflicts in our relationship with God. Conflicts in our relationship with God will cause conflicts in our soul, which in turn will cause conflicts in our sibling relationships.

We see that this has been a problem from the very beginning of Scripture. The story of Cain and Abel is found in Genesis 4, and from reading it we see that Cain's conflict with God caused a very harmful and deadly response in his sibling relationship.

"Whosoever doeth not righteousness is not of God, neither he that loveth not his brother. For this is the message that ye heard from the beginning, that we should love one another. Not as Cain, who was of that wicked one, and slew his brother. And wherefore slew he him? Because his own works were evil, and his brother's righteous." (1 John 3: 10b-12)

We would be wise to learn from this example and take our relationship with God seriously. All righteousness comes from the Lord, and if we are not living our lives in Him, we may very well sink down to doing some very painful or destructive things against the people we love the most.

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Posts from the Past

Every Wednesday I post something that I have written in the past. It may have been written a long time ago, or a very, very long time ago! :-D So please forgive any mistakes!

"Different Looks of Life"

My pastel challenge here was to doodle an object, any object, and copy it three times, using a different stroking technique for each picture.

As you can see, I used an edged wavy stroke here.

This one was done using the flat of the pastels.

And this was accomplished with straight strokes using the edge of the pastel.

I learned a lot about different techniques, but as I sat back and looked at what I had painted, I couldn't help but wonder how God would use these paintings to teach me.

It was a couple days later, I was flipping through my finished paintings, and when I came to these, the Lord showed me that this was very similar to how He works in my life! As He teaches me different lessons through His word and His Holy Spirit, I begin to look at life in different ways.

I can't even begin to describe how different life looks to me now than when it did a few months ago, and then how different that was from the year before! The closer God draws me to Himself, the more lessons I have to learn, and the more He changes my outlook on life. 

Praise God for how He teaches and changes us as we walk with Him!

"Rejoice evermore. Pray without ceasing. In every thing give thanks: for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you." ~ 1 Thessalonians 5:16-18

Doubting Thomas, or Caring Christ?

“And Thomas answered and said unto him, My Lord and my God. Jesus saith unto him, Thomas, because thou hast seen me, thou hast believed: blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed.”     John 20:28-29

As I was reading the passage about “Doubting Thomas”, I began to realize that this passage was not only a picture of one who doubts, but also an amazing picture of One who loves and cares for us personally.

To me, Thomas doesn’t really seem like a doubter, but one who wants to know and be sure of things. Because of this trait, he often doesn’t see the obvious, but wants to be told plainly or shown. That was the way he learned.

“Thomas saith unto him, Lord, we know not whither thou goest; and how can we know the way?”   John 14:5

I saw this in Thomas, because I learn the same way. Too many times I am looking for a direct answer or instruction, and fail to see the obvious answer in front of me!

Jesus knew this about Thomas, and he also knew that Thomas would not be there when He appeared to the disciples the first time. So why did He not wait until all the disciples were there?

I believe it was to show just how far Jesus will go to show that He cares for us individually. He knows each and every one of us, and He knows exactly what we need in order to believe, trust Him, or just step out in faith. His coming back specifically to show Thomas that He had indeed risen, showed just how much He loved Thomas, and wanted Him to be able to go forward without any doubts or reservations.

Jesus may not always give us all the answers, but He will ALWAYS provide everything we need to walk with Him. What an amazing love and care He has for every individual one of us!