Putting A Face On God

1 Peter 1:13-16

You must be holy in everything you do, just as God who chose you is holy. (1 Peter 1:15)

TERRORISM IN RECENT DECADES has put a disturbing face on Islam. The vast majority of Muslims would say that terrorist acts have nothing to do with their religion, and we can understand the objection. We use a similar logic when we say the Crusades, the Inquisition, and the KKK’s burning of crosses have nothing to do with real Christianity. You can’t define a religion by everyone who claims it. Nevertheless, outsiders do. We all tend to judge a system of beliefs by its most visible representatives, even when those representatives are visible for all the wrong reasons. Whether they intend to or not, they put a face on their God.

Think about that. People who do violence are making a statement about the nature of their God and driving people away from him. So are people who go around expressing judgment on everyone else’s shortcomings and blind spots, who talk about how much they love God’s Word though they haven’t ever found time to read the whole thing, who say they love others without actually being interested in them, and so on. The same dynamic applies, although to different extremes. Whether rightly or wrongly, people will judge your faith by your actions and attitudes. For better or for worse, you put a face on the God you claim.

Be careful about how you reflect God’s nature. You are called to be like him, not to claim his name and then act in a different spirit. If people out there are judging Christianity by your representation of Jesus, then represent him well. We were created in his image for just that purpose in the first place, and it’s the reason Jesus came as the exact image of God and expression of his nature (Hebrews 1:3). Through him, we are to be transformed back into the image we were first given so we can represent him accurately. Whatever face you put on him, let it reveal the truth of who he is.

{Father, forgive me for being a fallen, distorted representation of who you are. Restore me to your true image, and let me reflect you well. May I wear your true face always. Amen.