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Created in God's image
God's image? Today's WORSHIP QUOTE comes from Harold Best's book MUSIC THROUGH THE EYES OF FAITH. CREATED IN HIS IMAGE A Christian worldview maintains that God, the one and only Creator, is alone worthy of worship. Recognizing that God created us in his image, it further maintains that a unique aspect of that imaging lies in the capability of the two beings to communicate with each other, to enjoy each other's presence, to love each other without end, and to be at work continually together: the one sovereignly creating, upholding what has been created and revealing himself to it, the other responding through worship, adoration, stewardly work, and creativity. Such communion and worship are possible only because of the unique relationship between Creator and creature: the one is created in the image of the other. The difference is one of infinity and infinitude: the Creator is infinitely more-than, we are finite and less-than. Even so, the relationship is based on kind: we are created in God's image. Hence worship is not a one- sided affair, the one only getting and the other only giving. True, the Creator, by his very transcendence, cannot be but worshiped. And the creature, IMAGO DEI, cannot help but worship. True, the worth-ship of the one naturally woos the worship of the other. But this relationship is also an exchanging of gifts, because both are givers. This is a willing union of all-sufficiency and dependence, sovereignty and subordination, prevenient love and responding love, transcendent worthiness and temporal worth. We risk a paradox: while the Creator calls for worship, the worshiper would rush to worship even if he did not call. - Harold Best, in MUSIC THROUGH THE EYES OF FAITH, chapter 7, "The Nature of Worship, Faith, Grace, and Music Making," Harper Collins, 1993, p. 144. Have a great week, Chip Stam Pastor of Worship and Music Chapel Hill Bible Church Chapel Hill, North Carolina |