In the Image of God

Today I would like to share this beloved song of mine that has really touched my heart over the past few years. The song centres upon the image of God. The 1st stanza with have what God has done for man and in the 2nd stanza we have what man ought to do. Here are the beautiful lyrics:

In the image of God,
Man was made long ago,
With a purpose divine,
Here His glory to show;
But we failed Him one day,
And like sheep went astray,
Caring not for the cost,
We His likeness have lost,
But from eternity,
God had in mind -
The cross of Calvary, 
The lost to find,
From his heaven so broad,
Christ came down earth to tread, 
So that man might live again,
In the image of God. 

Now that I have believed,
And the Saviour received;
Now that I from the guilt,
Of my sin am relieved;
I will live for my Lord,
Not for gain or reward,
But for love, thinking of
What His grace has restored.
I’ll never comprehend,
Redemption’s plan,
How Christ could condescend,
To die for men.
Such a Saviour I’ll praise 
To the end of my days,
As I upward, onward, trod
In the image of God.

I’ve been reflecting about the image of God for quite a while. What did it actually mean when God said “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness,” in Genesis 1:26a? Does it mean that we look like God? Yes, I think perhaps we are like God in some sense, not be a physical likeness, but nevertheless, a spiritual likeness. We have the spiritual attributes of God like love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness to a certain extent, despite our fallen nature.

But the word ‘image’ actually reveals something more stated in the song

The purpose of being God’s image is to show his glory. An image is a reflection. Likewise, we are a reflection of God’s glory. When others see us, theywould see him.

What a wonderful thing it is if we could live out this purpose that he has for us from the very beginning, to be his image, the reflection of his glory!

Evidences of God’s work

Praise the Lord! Thank the Lord!

I’ve never been so joyful in my life. Today, as I was on the bus reading a short portion of scripture and a book on prayer, I discovered something so encouraging that I need to share with any one who reads.

I suddenly realised how God worked and I’m actually experiencing it first-hand! I’m so excited and happy!

Initially I was so apprehensive about having a prayer meeting for 40DOC. In my heart, I thought, who would be interested to even pray. It would be tough if I could just find a handful of people.

I began to call my prayer core group to join the prayer meeting. I was surprised that many were unable to make it. To be honest, I was rather disappointed and disheartened by the responses. It was so bad such that I thought the only two who were going to stay back on Sunday would be MelTee and me. That would make a prayer group of two people.

But nevertheless, having read the verse in Matthew 18:19 that if two agree on earth about anything that they may ask, it shall be done for them by our Father who is in heaven, I wouldn’t mind praying if there would be only two people. For if there is unity in the spirit, God would answer the prayers.

I was overjoyed when Sharene and Sien and Peggy came along after church to join the prayer group.

But it didn’t occur to me as much on Sunday than today that God was indeed working, that God was indeed answering our prayers for him to demonstrate his power, for him to prove himself to us!

I was reading Matthew 18:20, one more verse down today.

“For where two or three are gathered together in My name, there I am in their midst”

This passage was so familiar, but I saw it now under a different light. Not so much of two or three gathering, but two or three are gathered.

Two or three are gathered! I was like WOW!

It isn’t us gathering, forcing ourselves to gather together. Oh Lord, he has planted the holy spirit in us. It was the holy spirit’s working. It was the holy spirit’s gathering.

And I praise the Lord and thank him so much for that!

We can’t just gather or try to gather together ourselves to do God work. It always comes from God! We are gathered by HIS holy spirit, the very same spirit we share together as Christians.

I saw the miracle done on Sunday in a total new light.

The 5 of us didn’t just come together by chance, or did we try to come together just to pray for fun!

It was the holy spirit who brought and gathered us together! Praise God, for he worked! He didn’t just answer my prayer. He rewarded my prayer!

The spirit was really working, because prior to that, the holy spirit was working through Rev Paul Thian as he shared about prayer. And the spirit worked in some of them such that immediately after service, and it was really immediately, people came to ask me to join me in prayer. I believe it wasn’t chance or coincidence. It is the spirit!

This is great evidence of the spirit working. And seeing the spirit working now in our church, I’m glad that we can claim much much more and pray in further boldness, for our Lord is a God who answers pray.

God is going to work and has already begun his great work in our church. We need to believe and we need to continue to pray. And we will indeed see his glory being manifested that we will awe and wonder and praise from the bottom of our hearts.

I am really joyful today, seeing the Lord’s working. I blog this down as a testimony that he has worked.

This joy has given me strength. The joy of the Lord is my strength!

The Need of the Church

Since a sore back plus a flu has kept me from going to work today, I thought that this would be a good time to blog down something of a need that I see in the church today.

My church would be embarking on 40 Days of Community, an event lasting for 40 days purposed to bring the entire church together in community living and also in reaching out to the community outside the church.

Praise God! What a great opportunity this is for the church to grow spiritually and be a light in the society! This is indeed a tremendous event that could transform the lives of many.

As my youth ministry prayer coordinator, I have been given a most-privileged task of organising the prayer component of this blessed event. I am most thankful and honoured to be able to serve God in this ministry.

Many have emphasised and reiterated the significance of prayer for this entire event. We all know so well that prayer takes the utmost and highest place if this event is to be a success. Without prayer, we all know that all else is naught and that everything won’t fall into place.

But knowing all these, I still strongly feel that we have not prayed enough.

What if 40DOC would be a flop? Would it matter?

Yes, it would matter.

It would just simply prove that God is not in it. For if God is in it, manifesting his power during the event, how could it possibly be a flop? Would God fail himself? Would God simply let go of this opportunity for his church to grow?

May it never be, for God would never fail and he wants to see his beloved church grow spiritually at any cost.

This would bring the matter back to us. If 40DOC would be a flop, it would be us hindering the plans of God, preventing him from working and limiting his power that could be shown in this event.

This is a very serious matter!

Hence, we all need to pray and persevere in prayer.

How well the entire program runs doesn’t depend on how well our planning is, how well we execute our plans or even how clever or creative we can be to woo people to participate enthusiatically in this event. No, it doesn’t depend on all these.

It doesn’t even depend on how united we are, how well we work as team, because the church is not an organisation or a group of people working well together in great teamwork. If our unity is in the flesh, it isn’t true unity at all. What difference would it then make, if we would just call a group of experienced individuals who excel well in running this event to do it all for us? In fact, I reckon that they would run it many times better than we would.

How successful this event would be doesn’t depend on unity in the flesh, but unity in the holy spirit.

There is a great need to be united in corporate prayer, to come together, uniting our spirits to ask God what he really wants in this.

Matthew 18:19, 20 - Again I say to you, that if two of you agree on earth about anything that they may ask, it shall be done for them by My Father who is in heaven. For where two or three have gathered together in My name, there I am in their midst.

These are rather familiar verses to me. But i noticed something new within the lines, that, it is not about two agreeing on earth about anything, that it shall be done for them by our Father in heaven.

It is about two agreeing on earth about anything that they may ask that it shall be done for them by our Father in heaven.

This means that we may all agree and come together in a common logical consensus about a particular issue, but it is possible that God is totally not in it.

Because we have missed it all. It is not about agreeing on a certain issue, but agreeing on praying about a certain issue. Only through agreement on prayer about that issue, would God work in it.

Oh how often we just come to conclusions and decisions about things without God in it, all because we do not unite our hearts to pray as one. This is the true unity, the unity of the holy spirit.

And I trust and believe that where two or three have gathered together in My name, there I am in their midst.

God will be with us, in our midst, demonstrating his power and exhibiting his glory during 40DOC. We would be utterly amazed by how God would work when we come together in true unity, if only we could unite our hearts in prayer.

In prayer.

He would never ever fail us.