Image Of God!!!

THE IMAGE OF GOD!!

                It all started with me putting an image of Jesus as my profile picture in Whatsapp. I had always loved that image and hence put it as my DP. But then my friend Isaac pestered me to remove it. His point of argument to remove the picture was "God is beyond human imagination". How much he pestered me to remove it!!! That is when the thought- "Image of God" was initially sowed in my mind. The date was 2nd January, 2018. Then today, 14th January 2018, during Father's sermon at Sunday Mass, the same thought resurfaced - What is the image of God?

                Fr. was comparing the beginning of all the Gospels - How the beginning of John's Gospel differed from the rest: In the beginning was the Word: the Word was with God and the Word was God.  That's when I got drifted into my own thoughts. What is the image of God? What does God look like? How will I know?

                 I received the answer to all these questions - The Word of God : The Bible.  Often when I read a book / novel, I imagine the characters depending on the description in the book. Obviously, in the same way, the Bible will tell me about the image of God. What better source to tell me about God than His own words.

                The Bible says - God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him. What is this image and likeness? God's image is Love!!! God is Love!!!   Even the only two commandments given by Jesus talks about Love - Love for God and Love for other  beings. The Bible is the story of God's love for us inspite of our shortcomings. We can see God's image (i.e. Love) through the Bible.

                Many of us do not know how to read the Bible. We just open it and randomly read it and then we complain that we do not get any message from the Bible. Long back, in one of our conversations about the Bible, I had told Isaac that many times I do not understand what is written in the Bible. He asked me if I read any book/ novel from the middle of the book? I said - It would not make any sense if I read it from the middle. His reply was - The Bible also should be read from the beginning, praying to God and contemplating on whatever we read. Often I have read the Bible from the middle, like sometimes from the Gospels, sometimes the Revelation, but I have not read it continuously from the beginning and hence could not make much sense. Recently, I have been reading the Bible from the beginning continuously and I have completed 20% of it. And yes, I can understand much better now, how He saved His people, how often His people wandered away from Him and still He continues to love them. 

So to understand God's image, read His Word - The Bible.