YOU ARE THE IMAGE OF GOD...SIMPLY BE

The first and ultimate lie of the enemy of God and God’s children is that we have to do something else other than simply BEING who we are in order to be like God.  Eating the apple was the first in a long line of ways and methods to be like God.  These ways and methods developed into disciplines and burdens put on people, in the name of being righteous and religious.  It’s not that the disciplines, practices, or rituals are bad; it’s the motivation and expectation behind them that is the lie and the deception.

I don’t do Spiritual disciplines, practices, or rituals to be like God; I do them because I am already like God; I do them out of love for God.  I am already created in His image and that’s all it takes to be like God.  Sometimes religion focuses so much on original sin that it forgets the truth of original BEING.  For me that is where the hope lies when dealing with sin; sin is not my true character, my true self, what I was born into.  I was created to be the image of God; sin broke that mirror but God repairs and restores it, because that’s how He created me to be; His image.

My desire is to be the image of God in all I do, say, think, and BE.  My spiritual disciplines and practices are not rules or burdens; they are acts of love and adoration to God.  They keep me anchored and rooted to my Center, my Source, while living in a world that does all it can to set me adrift or uproot me from my foundation.  I don’t do them out of duty; I do them out of devotion.  I don’t do them to prove myself or approve myself to God or other people.  I do them because it pleases me to be in God’s Presence, and I know that pleases Him as well.

Jesus id my role model; it’s from his life that I learn.  He didn’t have a Rule; he didn’t use labels like Spiritual Practice, Spiritual Formation, and Spiritual Direction.  He simple lived out all those things; he communed with his Father as he walked, as he talked, as he withdrew at times, as he lived his life daily.  That is what pleases his Father; simply BEING His Son.

All other created life forms get this; trees and animals simple ARE; only human beings feel they need to categorize what they DO.  God made human beings simple; human beings complicate their lives by not simply BEING.

They still believe the first lie and continue to live in that deception.