Imagine that God is light and that God is love. Now imagine that God’s Being is the lens through which the light of his love shines.

Last week I was talking with a friend about Jesus’ parable of the prodigal. It’s beautiful story (and if you’ve not read it, do so right now, you won’t be sorry) that captures the extravagant love of a father for his wayward sons. In the midst of the conversation it became apparent that there’s no indication that the father had to try to love his sons well, he just did it. And that got me thinking: why didn’t he have to try and why do I have to try so hard to love well (and yet fail so often in doing so)?

I don’t believe that God, represented as the father in Jesus’ parable, has to try to love us. He loves perfectly, all the time, without fail. His perfect love arises from who he is, rather than an effort of the will on his part. His love of his creation and his love of his children just comes naturally, even in the hardest of times like when Jesus does the loving thing even for those who happened to be crucifying him at the time.

The bible says that we are created in God’s image, that is, we are created to be the image-bearers of who he is, what he cares about, and how he acts in goodness and love. We are created in his likeness. When I hear this, I think of a lens and begin to imagine that we are the lenses through which God meant to project his light and love out into his creation. The problem is that we don’t do that too well. Try as we may we don’t love perfectly, or even close to it.

Why? Why can’t we be who we want and know we should be?

From a Christian perspective, the problem comes down to the belief that God’s image in us, the lens through which he wishes to shine the light of his love into his creation, is damaged. It’s scratched up, it’s spider-webbed, it’s broken into pieces; any projection through it – any effort to shine the his love through our being – will be distorted; the light of love just can’t shine through cracked lenses without distortion. And so, I believe this is the reason we can’t love God, others, ourselves, or creation except in a sometimes less, sometimes more, distorted fashion.

So what’s the hope?

The only hope for a lens that projects imperfectly is for that lens to be repaired and restored. If that could be fully restored then we would love naturally like the father in the parable and like the God who loves us. As I read the bible, the initial repair work on that image comes as we entrust our lens to the master lens-maker, and as we draw nearer and nearer to him, he reshapes his image-bearers to project his character, his love, his desires, better and better over time (1 Corinthians 3:16-18).

Yet, we still don’t project all that well right now, do we? And so God uses other tools around us, if we let him. The truth is that while we sense that we are broken image-bearers, we are too close to the problem and too inept to know how to fix our own lens. So we need to receive the corrective the input of his word to us regularly. We need to be open to what the natural consequences of our choices might teach us. We need the best input of others and what they see to help us, too.

Together, all three of these tools help us realize when we cast a distorted attempt at love and goodness into the world and onto others, ourselves, or God. But even more than that, if we cooperate with the Lord in his use of these tools, the broken lens of our being might just be polished here and there, or angled just a little differently now and then, or be pieced together a little better every once in a while, so in the end we grow better able to be a vehicle for the love God desires to shine into the world. And as we let that happen, perhaps we’ll have to try less and less to love better and better because we are being reshaped in his image, the image we were meant to reveal all along.

“I contend that to be saved is to be renewed in the true image of God as women and men in Christ, to have our relationality restored so that our sinful selves, hopelessly incurvatus in se [turned in on themselves], are set free to be new creations in true divine and human koinnia.” Cherith Fee Nordling via A Community Called Atonement: Living Theology

Lord, help me to cooperate fully with your efforts to restore your image in me. Help me be open to the work of your Son, my Savior, and the Holy Spirit toward this end. Help me also to read and receive your word and to be open to the insights of those in the Body of Christ about my brokenness. Please, let your work be done through this so that I can better reveal your love and goodness in the world.

It had been a great day yesterday. The weather was warm and sunny and the work our team did in San Jose was very well-received. It felt good to have been given the opportunity to begin to assist one of the largest companies in the world in this particular industry, and to do so with excellence. I am so enthused about moving forward for the benefit of those we met yesterday. Plain and simple, it just doesn’t get any better than that with regard to my business. 

Reveling in all of this got me thinking about more important matters. Somewhere around 35,000′, it struck me that like our team, there was One long ago who traveled a great distance to offer help.

He was like us, but not just like us.

He was like us in the traveling, but unlike us in that

• he was shunned, while we were welcomed;
• his trip cost him greatly – it cost him his life – while our trip “cost us” a single day (and offered us new business);
• his goal was to change our lives and the world, while ours was to help improve one key initiative in one company.

Pretty substantial and humbling differences. The work we do is important and makes a difference, but it is nothing compared to the work of Jesus. 

Funny the thoughts you think on a plane.

Suddenly my reveling moved from what had been done yesterday in San Jose to the mission (not work) I share with the people of Columbia Ridge. Together we share in the call to reflect Christ in our world, even when it costs us greatly and even when it hurts, so that the lives of those around us – and indeed our community and our world – might be changed, redeemed. It just doesn’t get any better than that!

This Friday evening (November 18th) from 6:30-8:00pm at our offices I’ll be sharing as clearly as I know how the steps we need to take to move forward in this great mission and why I believe we need to do such things. Please attend if you can and if not, please pray for the success of this gathering.

In essence, here’s what the Lord said before that famous verse: “I took you into exile… you’re going to be there for longer than you wish… under a dominating power that has destroyed your life, even killing some of your loved ones… and you know what you’re called to do now? Live there in peace by building your lives for the best and by being excellent citizens insofar as you can do so while keeping true to me. Oh, and by the way, in about seventy years, I’ll be bringing the community back home.” The implication is that most of the Jewish people who had been captured and taken off to Babylon would live and die there in captivity because most wouldn’t live another seventy years. This, then, is the context for the great plans the Lord has for them.

The applications from the sermon were simple:

• when your circumstances change for the worse, live as if nothing has changed at all (for nothing has, the Lord is still in control and in the long term will make good on his promise of beneficence).
• when faced with a  government that is against you, giving you no voice, you should still strive to pray for it and be great citizens insofar as your conscience allows.

It was this last point that received a question: yes, but what are we to do if the government is unjust (not just a little unjust, as all governments are, but really unjust)?

That’s an excellent question and one I would guess was asked by those in the Jewish community during their exile. As we look at the testimony of what actually happened in their case, we see something interesting. Daniel and his companions served to their best ability. But that service only went so far for they would not be party to anything that compromised their faith. Consider, for example, Daniel in the den (Daniel 6) or the account of the three, uh, four, in the furnace (Daniel 3).

And then consider Jesus’ example when moving in an unjust world having all the power he needed to overthrow an unjust oppressor. Did he call the angels to a giant bloodbath? No. Instead he used a power greater than the sword, he used the power of  meekness; he served, he sacrificed, he loved, he forgave… and the world was changed.

What we call the meekness of Our Lord is more than an aspect of His character: it is its fundamental principle. There is nothing in it of the “inert door-mat”; it was, and is, the practice of uncompromising and unyielding love, the exposition of a new technique in dealing with evil. I believe it to be the business of Christians, especially to-day, first to realize, and then to proclaim, this revolutionary technique as the only way to peace and justice. It won’t be easy, for meekness has little “face value” compared with armaments; but, if the Cross means anything at all, it is the vindication of meekness as the most dynamic and explosive force that humanity has ever known… Donald O. Soper (1903-1998), Popular Fallacies about the Christian Faith, London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1938, p. 76 (via cqod.com)

He’s our example. He’s our guide. And we should follow in his steps, steps, by the way, that only make sense if we believe his promise to bring us home one day from the exile of our sins. Not only that, but we should follow in his footsteps because he shows us the most powerful means of changing the world for good: love in his name and by his power.

Now contrast that with what any parent would do if they suddenly discovered that their young daughter had wandered off. At first, they might yell out her name, but if that didn’t yield results, everything would be dropped: neighbors would be called, the police would be called, and the search would ensue.

The interesting thing about the situation which I just described is that the child may not feel as though she was lost at all. Perhaps she was just exploring, as children are prone to do. Regardless of whether the child felt lost or not, we know what she will feel when found: sought out and loved.

When she is reunited with her parents, this child will suddenly discover that heaven and earth were moved to find her. She will discover that her parents love her greatly and that she is missed when she is not around. And finally, she will discover the great joy that her parents have in being reunited with her. In the end, she will have the experience of being sought out. Don’t you think that she will smile, reflecting back her parent’s joy?

Jesus lived a life that proved, if nothing else, that every person who has ever lived and every person that will ever live is of immeasurable value to God; each person is sought out. Take, for instance, his words as recorded by Luke:

“If you had one hundred sheep, and one of them strayed away and was lost in the wilderness, wouldn’t you leave the ninety-nine others to go and search for the lost one until you found it? And then you would joyfully carry it home on your shoulders. When you arrived, you would call together your friends and neighbors to rejoice with you because your lost sheep was found. In the same way, heaven will be happier over one lost sinner who returns to God than over ninety-nine others who are righteous and haven’t strayed away!†Luke 15:4-7 (NLT)

Jesus spoke these words to those who were known to be “notorious sinners.†What must it have felt like for those people, people who had been rejected by the religiously inclined in their community, to have been sought out by Jesus?

Did they feel lost? Not likely. Instead they probably felt that they were doing their best and that they knew where they were. And if you really think about it, it is not so much that these people were lost, as in being in an unknown location or state, to God. Nobody is in an unknown state or location as far as God is concerned; he knows our location and experiences at every moment. Instead, they were lost to a full relationship with God, through Christ. And that is something they might have realized, if only deep down somewhere in the unspoken thoughts of the heart.

Because God so very much wants to share all life with us, he seeks us out, all the time, whether we are Christians or not, “good†or not, or whether we have a sense that we are lost or not. This is why I prefer the concept of “Sought Out Ones†in the place of “Lost Ones†– it more readily applies to us all…we are all “Sought Out Ones†all the time.

So how did those listening to Jesus feel about his words? I imagine that they felt much like the child we discussed in the first paragraphs of this article: they felt a sense of joy in being looked for, searched for, loved. They might even have wondered: “Was I really lost? And why do I matter so much? Whatever the reason, I’m glad I do.â€

As followers of Jesus, we are to be seekers of those who are sought out by God. Sometimes these “Sought Out Ones†will not feel as though they are wandering. That is okay, it is our joy to help them discover the One who is on an all out search for them anyway. At other times, those who are found will indeed feel as if they’ve been lost, and find incredible peace in being found. Either way, our job is to seek them out and to celebrate with God when they are found. Our job is to understand that no person matters little to God and therefore no person can matter little to us.