Living Reconciled
Living Reconciled, hosted by Mission Mississippi, is a podcast dedicated to exploring reconciliation and the Gospel that enables us to live it out. Mission Mississippi has been leading the way in racial reconciliation in Mississippi for 31 years. Our model is to bring people together to build relationships across racial lines so they can work together to better their communities. Our mission is to encourage and demonstrate grace in the Body of Christ across racial lines so that communities throughout Mississippi can see practical evidence of the gospel message.
Living Reconciled
EP. 65: Image-Bearers Part 1
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What does it truly mean to reflect God’s image in today’s world? In this episode, Brian, Austin, and Neddie have a deep and thought-provoking conversation and explore the divine identity we all share. Neddie reminds us of humanity’s intrinsic value, while Austin challenges us to see our divine reflection before our flaws. They also tackle the dangers of materialism, the power of empathy, and the sacredness of every individual. A great conversation recorded over the holidays but with significant relevance for every day of the year.
Special thanks to our sponsors:
Nissan, St. Dominic's Hospital, Atmos Energy, Regions Foundation, Mississippi College, Anderson United Methodist Church, Grace Temple Church, Mississippi State University, Real Christian Foundation, Brown Missionary Baptist Church, Christian Life Church, Ms. Doris Powell, Mr. Robert Ward, and Ms. Ann Winters.
This is Living Reconciled, a podcast dedicated to giving our communities practical evidence of the gospel message by helping Christians learn how to live in the reconciliation that Jesus has already secured for us by living with grace across racial lines. Hey, thanks so much for joining us on this episode of Living Reconciled. I am your host, brian Crawford, hanging out with my incredible friends, good friends, austin Hoyle, nettie Winters co-host with me on Living Reconciled. Gentlemen, how are you doing?
Speaker 2:Oh, I'm good, I am wonderful man, it's good, tociled Gentlemen, how are you doing? Oh, I'm good, I am wonderful man, it's good to see you, gentlemen, how you doing.
Speaker 1:You were slow out of the gate with that comment. What were you? You ready to go? How you feeling?
Speaker 2:I'm ready to roll, man. I'm ready to roll, all right, well good, good, good, before we roll too fast. I was slow out of the gate because I was thinking incredible friends. I always have thoughts about how you describe us as your friends.
Speaker 3:Dear friend Stupendous. What was it Prodigious, dear friends incredible friends.
Speaker 2:Then I had to go to Google and the dictionary to figure out what kind of friend I am.
Speaker 1:Dear friends, today Soful stuff.
Speaker 3:I thought they did engineering at Erdic. I didn't know. They did vocabulary lessons. I guess you have to have a good vocabulary Before we go too far.
Speaker 1:Gentlemen, give a quick shout out to folks like Mississippi College, where they teach English and very fancy words there.
Speaker 3:I got an English degree from there. I got an English degree from there. I got an English degree. That's my alma mater, that's my department. Man, I used to hang out there.
Speaker 1:Anderson United Methodist Church and Grace Temple Church, mississippi State Real Christian Foundation, nissan, st Dominic's Hospital, abnus Energy, regents Foundation, brown Missionary Baptist Church, christian Light Church and good folks like Ms Doris Powell, robert Ward and Winters. It's because of supporters like you that Mission Mississippi is able to do what we do. And, by the way, if you would like to join this wonderful group of individuals and churches and companies and foundations who are investing in the work of reconciliation by investing in Mission Mississippi, it's an incredibly easy thing to do. Just go to missionmississippiorg and click on the donate slash, invest button so that you can join them in investing in the work that the Lord is doing in our state, the work of reconciliation.
Speaker 1:Gentlemen, what we are doing today is talking about the ideal concept of image of God, image bearers, a fundamental ideal in Christian thought, I believe. In fact, the understanding that we carry around the image of God shapes how we think about the work of reconciliation, which is why I believe it's so instrumental and so important for us to talk about this today. So let's jump right in it. When we talk about image of God, nettie Winters, when you hear that word image of God what springs to mind first?
Speaker 2:What springs to mind for me is that as we look at one another, we're looking at the image and likeness of God. That's why I believe that he says there should be no graven images and likeness created of him. Pictures is another thing, because when you look at a human being, you have the image and likeness of God, the DNA of God in us, and so I think about our relationship with Him, our relationship with one another, how that all ought to work out, and that we should be looking at each other as God looks at us individually and collectively.
Speaker 3:So those are some of the things I just think about.
Speaker 2:When I think about in the beginning, I like to say it like this Brian Austin, you know, verses 1 and Genesis 1, verses 1 through 25 talk about all the things that God created and how, each time he'd create those things, he would look at it and say it was good. And then he had created everything through verse 25, except the human being. And then in verse 26, 27, 28, he talks about creating us in his image and his likeness. And then, when I drop down to verse 30, it says that God looked at after he had created man and human being with all other things. He looked at his creation and said it was very good. And I say man after God created man, everything got good. Not only good, but very good.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, man after God created men, everything got good, Not only good, but very good. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, it took. It took him a few thousand years, but he finally reached perfection right there, nettie, yeah you go, man. That's right, that's right and that's what I believe. That's what I believe.
Speaker 2:It's not in the Bible, but you know when you read verse 28 to 29, doesn't it say let's create man in our own image and our life.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I think somewhere in the Hebrew it says Nettie Ray, yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, when you talk about image of God, austin, and we have to tread carefully with our philosophy scholar here, because he can take us I was going to be really good. He can take us into deep waters and drown us in this discussion.
Speaker 3:I was going to talk about astrophysics, so I was not going to do theology. I promise you.
Speaker 1:So for the layman Austin, when you think about image of God, what comes to mind?
Speaker 3:I think it's one of the most primary ways in which we have to view ourselves as humans. Uh, I, I think that it comes before total depravity, at least in chronological order of the scripture and it's in the very, very first chapter.
Speaker 3:It's, it's, it's almost like and I I think that the purpose of the entire first chapter in genesis is to focus on us as being made in the image of god as, comparatively to all of the rest of creation, because it's not in it's, that's not in the image of god, but god had created something that's in the image of god and and I joked about astrophysics it's almost like the.
Speaker 3:The moon is a reflection of the sun, which is the ultimate power in our solar system right and so in that way, the moon is reflecting the image of the sun onto the earth so that we can see it, and I think that we operate. I think that the image of God is much the same way that we reflect. God shines on us and we reflect God's likeness and image and goodness and morality and order to the rest of creation.
Speaker 1:I appreciate, I appreciate you making that point where you're highlighting how Genesis one really is pointing us towards the image of God.
Speaker 1:Primarily, that thrust in that thrust of Genesis one is about painting this picture of who we were and and and.
Speaker 1:Then, because the rest of the chat, the rest of the book, is showing us who we become as a result of sin, and that image has not been completely and totally erased, but it has been marred, it has been disrupted, so to speak, and and really, the journey for for us, as humanity is to, is to be uh, restored back to that full and complete uh, reflection, uh and imaging of god through christ. And so, christ, exactly the journey, the journey of scripture, is through christ we are restored and recovered back to what netty talks about in the very beginning, where god creates and he's and he and he's looking at all these things and he's saying it's good, it's good, it's good, and then, of course, sin, mars, that goodness. But the journey for us is, through Christ, we are able to have that restored and see it in its fullness, that recovery back to the image that he created us in and see it in its fullness that recovery back to the image, the heat, the sin, primarily.
Speaker 3:I think two of the different ways that we always kind of understand ourselves as a species from Scripture's point of view is and it's almost like it's we usually always, in fact, most responsible Christian doctrines always have image of God and total depravity somewhere in the mix.
Speaker 3:But I think as Christians and I do think chronological order means something, and I do think primary focus of who we are in our most ideal state, which is what we would be in the Garden of Eden, the initiation of creation, all of that is really how God sees us. So when God says everything was good in Genesis 1, I think that's what salvation does to us. It brings us back to that state of everything being good in God's eyes. So when I say image of God should be primary, that's my perspective, because that is the goal that we're ultimately aiming towards, or really that God is aiming towards for us. And then total depravity is a significant doctrine to look at. But I think when we are looking at total depravity as our starting point, I think we could sometimes miss, because we do that for practical purposes, because the total depravity is in fact what we see almost every day of our lives.
Speaker 3:I mean, we see that, let me jump in and add to that real quick, austin.
Speaker 1:Oh, okay, because I'm thinking about recently. I may have mentioned this a couple of episodes ago, but we're working through Luke at our church. So my mind and my heart, my attention, is fixed and devoted on a lot of passages in Luke, and one of those passages that comes to mind kind of brings me to what you're discussing right now, when Jesus calls his first disciples. It's an experience on a boat fishing and he tells them to cast their let's go out into the deep, cast your nets into the deep. And then they cast those nets into the deep, and then they begin to pull so much fish that it takes two boats to to to capture all the fish and the weight of the fish. And then Peter says oh, get away from me, right I'm. I am a sinner, I'm a sinful man. And and and instead of the Lord, and instead of the Lord responding yeah, exactly Right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, thanks.
Speaker 1:God, right, right. He says, um, no, come, come, and I'm going to make you a fishers of men, basically Peter. Make you fishers of men, basically Peter. When he sees Christ for who he is, in that moment he sees this divine power on display. He sees himself. He's like, oh my goodness, I don't deserve to be in this moment with him.
Speaker 1:And it's the same thing that happens in Isaiah 6, when Isaiah is in the temple and he sees the train or the robe of God filling the temple, he says I am a man of unclean lips and I dwell amongst a people of unclean lips. And so he sees himself in that moment. But then, at the same time, god, in grace and in mercy incredible grace and mercy sees something else. And so God sees the same thing Peter sees, and he's seen it way before Peter saw it. And God sees the same thing Isaiah saw in himself, and he saw it way before Isaiah saw it.
Speaker 1:And yet, because of the grace and mercy that we've received in Christ and through Christ, god pushes past that and says I'm going to make you more. And so you're going to be fishers of men. Or, in Isaiah's case, hey, coal on your lips, coal on your tongue, you're going to be made clean. And so there's this reality, yet that, like you said, our image has been marred. But God, through Christ, sees something glorious, because his grace, his mercy, his power is able to perfect that which has been corrupted, and so he can see us in our fullest potential beauty. In that that, yes, you can wrestle with the reality of what we've become, but not to the detriment of losing sight of who we are in Christ.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, yeah, and we do that too often, I think, and it can come out in weird, subtle ways. We can almost have too much of a focus on the material world. Yeah, to the point where total depravity or we don't even use, sometimes, the the language of total depravity we just have such a focus on the material world that that we we don't focus on the spiritual things like almost at all we don't. We don't focus on innate goodness um at all. We don't focus on how christ can be in things.
Speaker 1:To a degree of oh no, you see him also, but he's doing this, he's leaving.
Speaker 3:I see it.
Speaker 2:That's the reason why I was going to get my thoughts finished. We want to jump in and also see if I want to jump in and never stop.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, yeah, no no, no, I knew the game would change as soon as you started talking. I was just wanting to get my thoughts out and then I was going to let you change the game. How much more time do you need to get all those thoughts out? Oh, I'm done. You already got it to tell in. You got it. I said my last sentence and then you jumped in. It was perfect timing.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so you know this toe, depravity and all that other language you use is great, but in the language you use is great. But in a sense, here's where I see a problem. Here, brian, to answer your question, when we look at one another, we see the image and likeness of ourselves, and so as a comparison standpoint we don't have anything. You know, we don't want to compare ourselves to God and to Jesus, but when we're confronted with that and have no option other than you know, you mentioned Peter Peter here is telling Jesus the whole time. You may be a preacher, but you don't know nothing about fishing man.
Speaker 2:You know, I'm a professional fisherman man. Let me tell you about fishing. Exactly, you're a master, you're a good teacher, but I know about fish and so he he doesn't even come into the context of understanding who he's talking to as the lady at the well, as we see. You know we had these conversations because we're looking at him as any other human being, right? Right and so when he illustrate exactly who he is and what he is capable of all of a sudden. Now we get to say wow.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it becomes wow.
Speaker 2:So we have this habit, or should I say we have the potential and potency and all those things which just comes out to say I'm going to look at Brian and see where he's short at, see where he's not making it, see where he's messing up at, and I'm going to focus on that about him so I can feel good about all the wonderful things I'm doing in those same areas. Maybe, or I find something negative to say about the other person or find something wrong with the person. So when I look at others, I look at the fallen image and likeness of man, and so, therefore, I have a lot that I can compare, because you could pick any day of the week, any person of the week, regardless of how accomplished they are. You can find some dents in the armor, as I say, you can find some blemishes on their skin or something. You could find something that you could put down to make yourself feel good or whatever else. And so you know, god breathed into human beings. He didn't breathe into an animal.
Speaker 3:True.
Speaker 2:But he breathed into a human being. You know, we find that in Genesis 2-7, where he breathed life into man, and so we have something that no one else has. We're the jewel or we're the crown of God's creation. God had this thing of DNA, of relationships, in mind when he designed us. When he created us, he had relationships in mind Relationship first of all with him, and then right relationship with ourselves within ourselves, and the right relationship with ourselves within ourselves, and the right relationship with others.
Speaker 2:And so often we can't get the right relationship with ourselves within excuse me, within right. So therefore we have, as Austin has articulated earlier, we have this flawed view of how human beings should look, how they should act and other things, and so then we look at as you were described, then we look at Jesus and go like man, I'm such a sinner.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:But even having the thought of thinking that some good thing dwells in me and I really don't want to admit and acknowledge that there is no good thing, dwells in me. The Bible tells us there's no good thing. You know, we're dirty fit to rags in the sight of God, but in the sight of one another man, we are ruined to bread.
Speaker 1:But and that's the thing, it's like the tension of the reality of who we are apart from Christ, apart from God, and the reality of who we are in Christ and in God. And there's always this, there's always this seesaw, so to speak, where you can go. This side, you can go a little too high in terms of who you think you are and your own arrogance, so to speak, or pride, and then you're like Peter, saying, hey, listen, I know about fishing, what do you know about this thing? Saying, hey, listen, I know about fishing, what do you know about this thing? But then you can go to the other side, right where you see yourself as so fallen and so corrupt that you don't even believe that you're redeemable, when God is saying no, no, no, no, no, I'm the one who redeems.
Speaker 1:I'm the one who cleanses. You know, like Peter, the Peter is saying and Acts, who says hey, you know, you can't touch any of this food. In my dream man, all this food is unclean. He's like wait a second, I'm God, I'm the one who cleanses, yeah, yeah. So that goes for us as well. He's the one who cleanses us.
Speaker 2:I see myself in Peter a lot, because even in the conversation with Jesus, common sense even if you didn't recognize who he was and what he was saying even common sense would have said man, you ought to just do as he says to do. Because he says to Peter Peter, you fished all night. You caught nothing. Don't you want to catch some fish? Man, I'm telling you where to go to catch some fish. In other words, what do you got to lose? Right, right, you ain't got nothing from nothing, leaving nothing.
Speaker 2:So the only thing you could come up, the worst thing could happen is that you come up with nothing. You still have nothing, you ain't lost anything, but you got the whole world again. And so you know, we have that image and likeness of ourselves. I'm just telling you our thoughts and our natural ability, if I can say it that way, austin, I know you MC English major, but anyway, our thoughts and who gives to this program? Now you know our thoughts and process of the capacity there can't get to that level to understand and appreciate that without the revelation of God, without the revelation of God, without the spirit of God, without all of the savior. So that's where we miss this image, and that's why we can be so contradictory.
Speaker 2:That's how we can we can teach the Bible and talk about how to love one another, but at the same time, ignore the fact that we're not doing what we're teaching to do.
Speaker 1:Hey, there's a sense that he, you know, there's a sense, nettie, you know. Scholars kind of go back and forth on this in terms of what is meant by the image of God. We're talking about God's. He created in us this relational capacity that we can relate back to him in ways that no other creation can, no other being can, and so our souls, our capacity to relate back to him in full fellowship, is something that is unique to us, and so we image him in that way. But then there's the other side of this discussion where they say well, actually it's imaging in the sense of when the ancients talked about that, they would send an image barrier of the king. They're talking about almost an ambassador, representative of the king, which is why you have in Genesis, in that same passage where God says let us make man in our image and likeness. It then, right after that, you hear in order that they might have dominion, exercise dominion in the earth. And so it's like this representation, this ambassadorship, where we are operating on God's behalf in the earth to work and to keep and to tend to it and to bring flourishing and be fruitful and multiply, and so we image him in that way, as a representative of him in the earth In my mind, to be honest, which I think is a little both.
Speaker 1:And I think when you hear image of God, you're hearing this representation that God has given, that God has assigned us to in the earth, but you're also seeing and hearing this relational soul capacity that we have to fellowship with God and that, alone, when we think about that, he's created no other being with that kind of capacity.
Speaker 1:When you think about the three different ends, that alone should raise the bar as it relates to how we treat one another. That should raise the bar in terms of what we're willing to do to one another and what we're willing to say to one another. That should raise the bar in terms of what we're willing to do to one another and what we're willing to say to one another. You know what I mean. And so talk a little bit about just how image of God, just this idea that I just kind of articulated for a moment. Talk to me about how that has shaped the way you interact personally with people in your life, day to day, that you come across, that you see, that you have conversations with, that you work with. Talk to me about how that has shaped your own lives.
Speaker 2:Well, from my perspective, when I think about the body, soul and spirit body, soul and spirit there's some part of God in me and there's some part of me in God, and so when I think about that, I have to keep that in mind. As I look at you and I look at Austin, I look at other human beings, I got to keep in mind that there's nothing in me that's unique as it relates to comparison with you and Austin. Whatever I have in me, you have in you. Some of us maybe demonstrated a little bit different or greater than others, but the same potential potency. All of those things exist in us. And so when I look at other human beings you know, one of the things in race relations that I've already thought about when we're having conversations is about, you know, this thing of understanding.
Speaker 2:Somebody have said, and rightly so, that the greatest need of a human being is to be understood, except for physical survival, except for physical survival. So when I look at Austin and I look at Brian, they have an eagerness in them, as I do in me, which is the same. We want to be understood. How often we talk to each other. But you'll understand. But you'll understand. I've said it and I'm sure you've said it and I know if you got into children running around or spouse running around or had a mom and daddy running around. You've heard it more, boy, you understand me and you're standing there with not a clue.
Speaker 2:I have been, and so the greatest need for me as a human being, to be understood. Well, if I understand that about me, I got to understand that about you. So I have this thought and process, or calling process. Why don't I seek to understand you first before seeking to be understood? And I think if I could practice that as perfectly as I practice being understood, things would be a whole lot better as it relates to the image and likeness of God. And so when we think about each other, we got to think about you, talk about connecting and relation to each other and acting out. We got to think about the same good stuff or the same bad stuff. I think the word is potensity. I'm probably not pronouncing it correctly, but we have it in us and I think that's where some people have coined the phrase. Except for the grace of God, they'll go out right.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and you talk about propensity, potential and propensity is what I hear you saying is that, because we're made in the image of God, we all carry this, this potential to image him more fully and completely. But also, because we've been marred by sin, we all carry the propensity to to waver from that potential. And so I love, I love the fact, nettie, that you're, you're how, you're, how you're basically pointing to the reality that, because we're made in an image of God, we, you and I and Austin, we carry a very similar substance in us, if you will Right that, that, that, that what's going on and what's going on in Austin is going on in me and vice versa, in me and vice versa, and thus I should carry a level of empathy to acknowledge that we're not that far apart, that God has wired and created us in such a way where the same grace that's available to me I should extend to him, because we are like you said, we're made with the same stuff.
Speaker 2:Well, god expects for you to extend whatever he extends to you in grace, forgiveness, love, compassion.
Speaker 1:He fully expects for you to put it in circulation, man, he don't expect for you to, because those people that he wants you to put it in circulation to, they were created in the same image Exactly, and they got the same need same desires, same wants you talk about.
Speaker 2:We're not for a part, we're not a part at all. Yeah, we create the categories, we create the divides.
Speaker 2:We create the clusters and clans and all that other stuff. And because we do, now we're basing our judgment on what we've been taught culturally or otherwise, what we picked it up from. So now we get into attributes, we go as far as you know. How do I say this? Is that when tattooing became the thing to do? Or the braiding and the other? What are the other things, the braiding and what other things they use? Oh, you're talking about dreadlocks, dreadlocks and now the twist, and just you know, it's like how creative can I be with this hair? Right? You know what I'm saying? Like man, I never even dreamed that you could do with hair what I see people do with hair now and for my now, y'all just be cute and from my perspective, it does not enhance you. Oh there, he goes.
Speaker 2:Great show.
Speaker 3:You're meddling now.
Speaker 1:Rich sold it just in time for Christmas.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so you got this way of styles and culture and it doesn't for my part, it doesn't enhance you. So therefore, now I got reason or justification to criticize you based on how it would appear, rather than how it would appear.
Speaker 2:You know, jay says a guy rose in in his golden chariot and with the latest sandals and all that stuff on and shows up in your current game and you give him the best seat in the hall. This other guy come in worn tared, wore out sandals or whatever else. Man, you go over there and set my footstool and you know if we get around to you good or not. You just be a, you go and stay in your place over there, kind of thing he said. Isn't that evil? He said that's bare thought. It's evil of how we look at one another and strictly based on that, we're in the season I got to throw it in there. We're in the season of Christmas.
Speaker 2:When I read Luke 2, verse 7 and verse 11, capstones it for me. Verse 7 says there was no room in the end man. Now, I had this image Austin, don't judge me too hard here. I had this image that Joseph and Mary shows up at this end, right and somewhat of raggedy clothes, maybe Her sitting on a donkey, maybe she didn't ride in on a camel with entourage, and you know, and you know all of that stuff, pack, muse, and all that stuff. So she shows up, they show up, and here's this forgive me, raggedy-looking couple.
Speaker 2:And they're going to bust up into the end and say you know we need a place. And they're like not here, you're not. You know we got to stay with our back. If you just got to have a place to get shelter, go out there. And it's obvious. This woman the Bible says that she was ready to give birth. That's right. It was a hard point in time. This lady is about to drop a kid and this guy is talking about well, not here, you won't. So that's how we do, man, we look at the materialistic, the attributes of accomplishments, we look at ability and capacity and all of those things that set us apart, maybe, from some others, and that's what we make our judgment on. And it's contradictory of what the Bible says. It just totally contradicts. And I believe that's why Jesus started with the poor people. That's why he says I come to set the captives free and all of that. So the image and likeness of God should be operating by the Spirit of God in us and not by our own human capacity.
Speaker 1:That's my.
Speaker 2:Christmas message about the image and likeness. I like it. It's my Christmas message about the image of God.
Speaker 3:I like it.
Speaker 1:It's the Christmas Eve candlelight service. Message of the image of God.
Speaker 2:Feel free, by the way, to use it.
Speaker 1:When you hear image of God, Austin, how or when you think about the image of God, how does it help you? How or when you think about the image of God, how does it help you and how does it shape the way you treat those around you?
Speaker 3:Right, right, Well, just throughout my ministry, there's never been a time, there's never been a church where I haven't. And even when I'm in right now, I've only been here for six months and I've already ran into just people who have just serious mental health issues, Right, I mean, and for me that, or I mean, some of it's spurred on by, um, illicit drug use, uh, particularly methamphetamines and other other cocktails, but, uh, but that's uh, you know, and just to be meet people whose whose minds have have gone to some serious degree, uh, and just remembering that, uh, that, that that God can still reach them in some measure, Right, yeah.
Speaker 3:Even people whose minds are disconnected from reality, even to a small degree sometimes to a large degree, but even to a small degree that God is just still their father, still loves them, they still to some measure reflect, or can have the capacity to reflect, the, uh, the moral vision of, of of God is, um, you know that that, for me, is what the, the, the doctor of the image of God, does.
Speaker 3:Uh, when I do meet people who you know, uh, there's a, you know I'm, I'm thinking in particular, um, someone that passed, a schizophrenic man who who literally heard voices. I mean, if you talk to him, you, a schizophrenic man who literally heard voices. I mean, if you talk to him for more than five minutes, you would recognize that this person has added disconnect from reality but yet, at the same time, because he is a person who is made in the image of God, God has the capacity to speak to him in some measure. And just through the course of my relationship, my friendship with this man, I did see the authentic voice of God speaking to him in some measure, to the point where he was able to say you know, I believe in Christ, even though he had all of these other issues that he was working with, but he was still very much so.
Speaker 3:He was so very, very, very much so, made in the image of God. And for me, when I think of image of God, I think of those hard cases. I think of those hard, hard, hard situations when we really do just discount people because they do have a mental disconnect from reality, but yet knowing God is far more powerful than any illness or any deficit or any abuse of drugs and what the impact that that might have had on their minds. So that's what what's changed People who don't necessarily stay for worship but who come in and just for some reason or another, end up on my radar and end up in a relationship with me.
Speaker 1:Yeah, now, for me, one of the things that has changed is that it just always provides well, not always, because, again, the image of God is marred in me as well, so there are times in which I don't always live up to this, to this understanding, but but one of the things that it has done more of in my life is I'm a lot less, a lot less prone to treat people harshly, because image of God reminds me of who they belong to. Ultimately, there's a sense in ownership, where this is God's creation, he or she is God's creation and I am to treat them as such. There's a sacredness that comes along with understanding that we're created in the image and likeness of God, and it's, in many ways, just like, if you know the president of the United States or the president of any country you know, some dignitary were to show up at my house and give me a rare item that was in their possession and told me to take care of this while they go, wherever they're going to go, then you better believe that we're going to do everything possible in my house to care well for that particular item in their absence. Well, how much more so when we talk about human beings created in the image and likeness of patience, and the sort of compassion that reflects not just simply a love for them but, even more so, reflects a love for the God that made them, and so that's one of the ways in which I have been reshaped in terms of my understanding of how to treat people is just being reminded that these people belong to God, that, before they belong to anyone else, they belong to him and thus must be treated as such. Guys, we got a lot that we're going to dive into in the course of this discussion, so what we're going to do is we're going to put pause on today's discussion and jump into part two of this here in the next week or so, and so, for our podcast listeners, please feel free to subscribe to Living Reconciled. You can do that by going to any podcast app and searching on Living Reconciled, and you will not only be able to catch this episode but, prayerfully, in a couple of weeks, you'll be able to catch part two of this discussion as we continue to dive into.
Speaker 1:What does it mean for us to live in light of the reality that we were created in the image and likeness of God? It's been a great conversation thus far Looking forward to more. For those of you all who are celebrating the holidays hopefully this episode is being released during that time we want to wish you guys a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year, but on behalf of my good friends Austin Hoyle, nettie Winters, this is Brian Crawford. We're signing off saying God bless. God bless. Thanks for joining Living Reconciled. If you would like more information on how you can be a part of the ongoing work of helping Christians learn how to live in the reconciliation that Jesus has already secured, please visit us online at missionmississippiorg or call us at 601-353-6477. Thanks again for listening.
