Tag Archives: Likeness

Wednesday with John — Likeness

Posted on September 28, 2022 | Leave a comment

John 15:18 “If the world hates you, know that it has hated me before it hated you. 19 If you were of the world, the world would love you as its own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you. 20 Remember the word that I said to you: ‘A servant is not greater than his master.’ If they persecuted me, they will also persecute you. If they kept my word, they will also keep yours. 21 But all these things they will do to you on account of my name, because they do not know him who sent me. 22 If I had not come and spoken to them, they would not have been guilty of sin, but now they have no excuse for their sin. 23 Whoever hates me hates my Father also. 24 If I had not done among them the works that no one else did, they would not be guilty of sin, but now they have seen and hated both me and my Father. 25 But the word that is written in their Law must be fulfilled: ‘They hated me without a cause.’  26 “But when the Helper comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth, who proceeds from the Father, he will bear witness about me. 27 And you also will bear witness, because you have been with me from the beginning.  ESV

What is the general theme of the passage?
Truth is hard to hear.  It evokes a harsh reaction from the world. The world hated Jesus without a cause because He spoke and made them aware of their sin.  How much more will they hate those who Jesus chose to save from their midst.  Jesus sent the Spirit of truth to help us get over ourself and bear witness about Him

What does it say about God (or Jesus or the Holy Spirit?)
Jesus is well aware that hatred and persecution by the world is part of His identity because He has identified sin by what’s He’s said and done. 

What does it say about people?
Remember the word that I said to you: ‘A servant is not greater than his master.’

Is there truth here for me?
”Likeness” to Jesus is a critical element of Christian belief.  It’s difficult to read that being like Jesus may well include the hatred and persecution of the world. It’s difficult to be confronted with the reality that if they persecuted the perfect Jesus, they will also persecute me if that “likeness” begins to show.  Self-protection is the last barrier the Spirit of truth has to remove so when I “bear witness” to Jesus my words reveal “a servant is not greater than [her] master,” both to the world…and to myself.

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Posted in John, Matthew, New Testament, Wednesday

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Consider Reality

Posted on September 22, 2021 | Leave a comment

2 Oh, dear children of mine (forgive the affection of an old man!), have you realized it? Here and now we are God’s children. We don’t know what we shall become in the future. We only know that, if reality were to break through, we should reflect his likeness, for we should see him as he really is!

3 Everyone who has at heart a hope like that keeps himself pure, for he knows how pure Christ is.  J.B. Phillips New Testament

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The Third Chapter – 1 Peter

Posted on November 4, 2020 | Leave a comment

1 Peter 3:8 Finally, all of you, have unity of mind, sympathy, brotherly love, a tender heart, and a humble mind. 9 Do not repay evil for evil or reviling for reviling, but on the contrary, bless, for to this you were called, that you may obtain a blessing. 10 For “Whoever desires to love life and see good days, let him keep his tongue from evil and his lips from speaking deceit; 11 let him turn away from evil and do good; let him seek peace and pursue it. ” [ESV]

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Have you ever wondered about “unity of mind?”  Today that’s foremost on my mind.  There are issues of faith, culture and politics that can, and do, divide us. Unity is defined as likeness but is unity the same as likeness?  Each of us exist in the flesh at the will of the same Creator but every person is a unique creation.  That uniqueness is evident in our own bodies.  Every cell within each person is unlike any other but they they still unite and manage to form one unique body.  Each person is formed with their own body, DNA, mind and personality.  Each of us is one-of-a-kind, unlike any other. 

We have been purposefully created in God’s own image, by His own design, to be mismatched from one another in our own physical body and mind. God has created His unique body, the Church, from mismatched minds and bodies learning to depend on His likeness and be united by His mind as they struggle to find the balance between personal uniqueness and Spiritual “unity of mind.”

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Second Chance: Hebrews 2

Posted on June 26, 2019 | Leave a comment

FYI: No chapter 2 in Philemon
√ Re·new·al: the replacing or repair of something that is worn out, run-down, or broken

Hebrews 2:5 It is not to angels that he has subjected the world to come, about which we are speaking. 6 But there is a place where someone has testified: What is mankind that you are mindful of them, a son of man that you care for him? 7 You made them [for a little while] a little lower than the angels; you crowned them with glory and honor 8 and put everything under their [Or his] feet.” In putting everything under them,[Or him] God left nothing that is not subject to them.[Or him] Yet at present we do not see everything subject to them.[Or him] 9 But we do see Jesus, who was made lower than the angels for a little while, now crowned with glory and honor because he suffered death, so that by the grace of God he might taste death for everyone. 

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The first thing that caught my attention in Hebrews 2 was the [footnoted] path that challenged me look at “them” with the alternate [him.]  That was intriguing because I believe the Old Testament is a foreshadow comparing the glory and dominion God intended for man, then, to our example for life now, Jesus.  This was more than that for me.  God began our world with a plan to establish an identity of “glory and honor” between the divine beginnings of man and His own.


• Genesis 1:26 26 Then God said, “Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals,[Or the earth] and over all the creatures that move along the ground.”
• Later David wrote about man in relationship to God: “What is mankind that you are mindful of them, a son of man that you care for him?  You made them [for a little while] a little lower than the angels; you crowned them with glory and honor and put everything under their [Or his] feet.”
• Then Paul writes “In putting everything under them,[Or him] God left nothing that is not subject to them.[Or him].  Yet at present we do not see everything subject to them [Or him].  But we do see Jesus, who was made lower than the angels for a little while, now crowned with glory and honor because he suffered death, so that by the grace of God he might taste death for everyone.”

Did you catch that identity between “man” and “Jesus?”  Both were made “[for a little while] a little lower than the angels…both crowned with glory and honor and everything under their [Or his] feet” or “subject to them.[Or him].”  Clearly a strong identity but not quite a “likeness.”  G.K. Chesterton wrote “one thing is certain – man is not what he was meant to be.” 

• Jesus came into our world with the unmistakable identity of “man.”  He was born a baby!  The Son of God lived his identity with man, lost his identity because of man but was resurrected to reveal another unmistakable identity to man – the image of God!  That’s the revelation that turns our identity with Him into “likeness” and changes “for a little while” into an eternity of shared “glory and honor” with “them” [him].

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Likeness

Posted on November 30, 2016 | Leave a comment

branchribbons
Then God said, “Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.” Genesis 1:26

“Let us…our image, in our likeness;” are phrases of the reality of Christ’s presence, not just at our Christmas or Advent celebrations but at the beginning of all life. He was there when the stage was set for mankind: water, light, sky, vegetation, stars, living creatures…and finally…Adam. He saw firsthand what a new creation looked like and it was good.

It was a perfect preparation for that future day when he would open his eyes in a very different place, a cradle, and a new beginning. Even though people might not recognize him, he would still see the likeness of their creator in them and in that image they bore the possibility of a new beginning…and it was good.

Those images we see of that divine baby during Advent remind us we are image bearers of our creator but that likeness always starts with a new beginning. While our eyes are focused on him, he sees that likeness in us and that is good!

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Posted in Advent, Genesis, Wednesday

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