16. JESUS’ LIFE, DEATH, AND RESURRECTION MAKES HEALING OF MY MISTAKEN SELF-IMAGE POSSIBLE.
(Before looking at the questions below, take a few minutes to think about this statement. Invite Jesus to speak to you about what He would like you to notice.)
WHEN YOU IMAGINE THE CRUCIFIXION OF JESUS, HOW DOES IT MAKE YOU FEEL?
HOW DOES THE CROSS MAKE YOU FEEL ABOUT YOURSELF AND YOUR WORTHINESS TO BE WITH GOD?
DO YOU SENSE THAT GOD IS UPSET AT YOUR SIN AND THAT JESUS' DEATH WAS CHIEFLY ABOUT APPEASING GOD'S ANGER?
HOW WOULD IT CHANGE YOUR THOUGHTS TO IMAGINE THAT ONE OF THE REASONS JESUS WILLINGLY WENT TO THE CROSS WAS TO REMOVE YOUR FEELINGS OF UNWORTHINESS? WHAT IF HE WANTED TO REMOVE ANY REASON THAT KEEPS YOU FROM EXPERIENCING A CLOSE AND ABUNDANT RELATIONSHIP WITH HIM?
When God created humanity, He made humankind in his own image, the Imago Dei. In doing so, God invited us to have an image of ourselves that reflects him. But sin distorted that image. Following Adam and Eve's sin, the Deceiver led us to believe that our fallenness means we no longer represent God's image. It was through the incarnation, when God became human in the form of Jesus, that God made it possible for us to reflect the Imago Dei once again.
God's love for humankind compelled him to send himself as the man Jesus. For God to do what he did in the incarnation shows how truly God values and desires a relationship with human beings. Through Jesus we can have an eternal and abundant life with God. But the heart-experienced abundance that Jesus came to bring is possible only when we believe that we are worthy of it.
No matter how much God longs for our abundance, our image of ourselves must allow for it. Otherwise, we are incapable of receiving God's love. The incarnation testifies to God's view of us as worthy and the cross also speaks to this. We know that Jesus' voluntary death on the cross had to do with our sin against God. But what if God also wanted to correct the problem that our sin caused for us? We imagined ourselves as unworthy, but that didn't reflect how God sees us. And with the resurrection, Jesus defeated the Deceiver and death. He defeated Satan's lie that we are not worthy of God's love with his death and resurrection!
So when we think of the cross now, instead of feeling shame, guilt, and remorse, God wants us to feel love, invitation, and freedom. What we see in the incarnation is that God desires a relationship with us and has done all that is necessary to make us worthy of that relationship. This is evident not only in Christ's birth, death, and resurrection, but also in his earthly ministry. Time and again, Jesus elevates a person that culture has degraded. The woman caught in adultery, the tax collector, the Samaritan, fishermen, lepers, the lame, deaf, and demon possessed.
All that Jesus taught and did tells us that God says we are worthy of his love. He wants us to believe that and to have an image of ourselves as the restored Imago Dei.