reflect.

What is our purpose? I suppose that is the question. What am I suppose to do with my life... I think we all have gone through this frustrating and extremely annoying stage and if you haven’t you soon will (especially in your twenties). And if you think it’s over and you have arrived. Just wait. It’ll hit you again like a slice of lemon wrapped around a large gold brick*.

Stupid jokes and silly quotes aside what are we suppose to do with our short lives? As a follower of Jesus this becomes an even more interesting and hotly debated question.

Are we trying to earn our way to heaven? Which can quickly be shot down as that dreaded word in evangelical Christianity often said as if you are holding something back in your throat; works.
Then we need not do anything! Obviously we can’t earn our place in heaven, you can feel the but coming, but what about James? A friend of mine said the other day that before you get to Peter at the pearly gates, you’ll have to deal with James first. Especially that annoying thing he wrote about faith being useless without works. So what to do?

Maybe we should do good things because we are so thankful that we have been saved. Sounds good right? So if you don’t help smelly old ladies, you are not thankful and will lose your savedness. Hmm, it’s like works but backwards and that still doesn’t work.

So let’s just do what Jesus did (you know WJJD), because well we like him a lot and would like to be more like him. That sounds perfect. Right? Only one snag, you are not Jesus. It’s like asking me to sit down at a piano and play like Beethoven. Not going to happen. But what if I could be possessed by Beethoven and he could play through me? That could work, right?

Len Sweet says something like, ‘don’t try and be like Jesus, just let Jesus be himself in you’. Now that sounds a way to go.

In Exodus, Moses goes up a mountain and comes down with two stone tablets. He does this twice actually since he has a bit of an incident with Israel involving a golden calf and smashing of tablets the first time.

Can you remember what the third thing on the tablets say? In other words what is the third commandment?

‘You shall not take the name of the LORD in vain.’

Now we often interpret this as meaning not to swear using Jesus or God’s name. And that’s right, you shouldn’t, so don’t start. But like most things in scripture it goes deeper than you stubbing your toe and losing control of your tongue. The word ‘take’ also means ‘carry’; do not carry the name of the Lord in vain. It implies your whole life that you shouldn’t say that you follow Jesus and not really mean it. Don’t stick that name on your back if you are not going to walk the walk. In short when you say you follow Jesus or are a Christian, you become a name bearer of God. You represent him, when you do something it’s like him doing it.

This leads me to another scripture, which you may have guessed by now, in Genesis it is written that we are created in the image of God. Now this means a lot of things and can be understood in twice as many ways. But one of those is that we represent God on earth. We have to take care of this creation for him. Like an ambassador. An ambassador has one purpose to represent his King or country. Paul even calls us ambassadors for Christ 2 Cor 5:20.

Another image Paul uses is that of a mirror, in 2 Cor 3:18 he says:

‘But we all, with our face having been unveiled, having beheld the glory of the Lord as in a mirror, are being changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Lord Spirit’ MKJV

Or in the Message translation:

‘All of us! Nothing between us and God, our faces shining with the brightness of his face. And so we are transfigured much like the Messiah, our lives gradually becoming brighter and more beautiful as God enters our lives and we become like him’

He says this happens because of Christ, he fuses metaphors (again). When Moses came down the mountain after meeting with God, he face shone with God’s glory. He hid his face, since the people were afraid to look at him, but in Christ this veil is taken away. It refers to the veil covering the most holy place that was torn when Jesus died and also the veil that covered Moses’ face. So now two things can happen, we can see God clearly and reflect him clearly.
The word he uses in the scripture goes both ways. It means reflect but also behold.

It’s simple really, if you want to reflect God, you have to be turned towards him as a mirror is to the sun in order to reflect the light.

So the first step to finding out what you are suppose to do with your life is not praying for a roadmap, rather it’s adoring God, turning your heart towards him.

We are very keen to reflect God, but not so good at beholding. So for a moment leave all the questions that you might have about God, the bible, why good people maybe go to hell and just turn your heart towards God. Take just a few minutes a day and turn your heart with no questions or requests. Just adoration and see how your day changes,
how your life changes.

The more time we spend in God’s light, the more we become like him. Like a poker left in a hot fire. At the start you can see the poker clearly but after a while it becomes like the fire (this process is part of the threefold way, ancient understanding of spiritual growth, but more about that in another issue).

So then, we do good things, because God does good things.

We love the world, because God loves the world.

We comfort, because God comforts.

We are on mission, because God is on mission.

We are gracious and compassionate, because God is gracious and compassionate.

We are merciful, because God is merciful.

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*The same effect the best drink in the universe has, a pan galactic gargle blaster, according the The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy.