Written by Chris Webb, a contemporary Benedictine Anglican priest, author, speaker, and teacher. This is an excerpt from his work “To Bear the Character of God.”
The opening chapter of the Bible tells us that we are made “in the image of God” (Gen 1:27). Scholars and theologians have reflected for over two millennia about exactly what that might mean, but the apostle John, in his first letter, gives us an important insight into at least one significant implication. “God is love,” he writes, “and those who abide in love abide in God, and God abides in them” (1 Jn 4:16). To bear the character of God is to have love hardwired into our essential nature. The more we are conformed to the character of God, the more perfectly loving we will become. We are created to love.
Prayer:
Written by Eugene Peterson (1932-2018), an American Presbyterian minister, scholar, theologian, author and poet. He is well know for his Bible translation “The Message.”
May this day bring rest to my heart and my home. May God’s image in me be restored and my imagination in God be re-storied. May the gravity of material things be lightened and the relativity of time slow down. May I know grace to embrace my own finite smallness in the arms of God’s infintite greatness. May God’s Word feed me and His Spirit lead me into the week and into the life to come. Amen.
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