What;s Your Illustration?

If people were to look at your life today, what would they see? What would they think were the most important things in your life, the things that you believe or stand for? How is your illustration?

One of the things we are learning in our Let’s Start Talking training is that our lives serve as the illustration of God’s word. We bring the Word of God to life. Our words, our attitude, our actions… all serve as tools to illustrate the word of God. As followers of Christ our lives are to reflect his. As Peter tells us, we are called to walk in his steps (1 Peter 2:21). If we are following Christ, other people should see God’s glory in and through us.

Paul refers to this as our reflection of the glory of God: “But whenever anyone turns to the Lord, the veil is taken away. Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. And we, who with unveiled faces all reflect the Lord's glory, are being transformed into his likeness with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit” (2 Cor. 3:16-18). Our goal is that our faces (and our lives) should reflect the beautiful glory of God.

Peter takes this one step further. We are called to reflect God’s glory so that the world will know the power and majesty of God. Our lives are called to be fundamentally different from the world around us. We are “aliens and strangers” to the world, people who look, act, and live differently than those we are living among. “Dear friends, I urge you, as aliens and strangers in the world, to abstain from sinful desires, which war against your soul. Live such good lives among the pagans that, though they accuse you of doing wrong, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day he visits us” (1 Peter 2:11-12).

We aren’t just called to be weird; we are called to be different so that the world will know the God whom we serve. So, what’s your illustration?