Sunday sermon.

My Pastor talked today about man being made in God's own image and man being God's crowning glory. (Psalm 8.) That we are supposed to reveal God's righteousness for all to see Him in us. He talked about how God looked at the man that he had created in his own image (Adam), and said it was very good. (Genesis 1:27-31.)
I thought about these two concepts intertwined as he spoke, it made me think about when my son Aiden was born. I used to call him "daddylips." When he was born, we looked at him and tried to see in him all the things that were reflected from us and our family. I could see God looking into the eyes of Adam and saying, "You have my goodness son, my mercy, my kindness. You are gentle like your Dad. You will grow in wisdom. I am so pleased when I think of what you have inherited from me, it will bless you." Have you ever seen a picture taken at a hospital of a dad and his baby, fresh from the womb and all swaddled up? If you have, they are all the same. The father's eyes are fixed on the newborn with a gaze of love, pride, awe....
And then the Pastor talked about how our righteousness is like filthy rags.(Isaiah 64:6.) I could then see a picture in my mind, and this one stayed a long while enfolding, of a bunch of cloth that looked like it had been in a mechanics shop. Soiled and bundled, in knots. This is like how it is when we try to take care of our own righteousness. When we try to keep being good enough. We take a clean, white cotton rag and wipe off the dirt. We carry on. We make another mistake. We wipe some more. We tuck in the rag and fold it over, trying to find a clean edge. We fall hard. We pick ourselves up and wipe again. Soon there is no clean part of that rag left and if we keep wiping, we just make the smudge worse. We need renewing. If God is our righteousness (1 John 1:9), then he purifies us. We can stop wiping and just be clean.
Sometimes I wish I could paint so I could show you this picture. It`s like an oil painting. Anyways, I just wanted to share that pic. It made the verses come out in a new way to me. I am glad that God`s mercies to us are new every morning, that God is continuing to renew our minds and hearts in Christ Jesus, and most of all, that he will finish unto completion, what he has set out to do in us.