We are ALL made in His image

I went on a trip last summer with my youth group to Denver, Colorado, where we worked with the ministry Dry Bones to help the homeless that lived in Denver. At the end of the trip, we had a time as a group to reflect on the things we learned. I wrote these lessons down, put them in an envelope, and handed the envelope over to the leader of Dry Bones. I received that letter months ago, but today I found it again and I found the lessons that I needed to be reminded of.

The main theme of that week was that we all possess unsurpassable value that can’t be taken away. God made us all in His image for a reason, He is the person who gives us value and life. So why do we see some people as lesser than, whenever God created us and Jesus died for us all the same?

Here are a couple things I had written down that really stuck out to me:

“I am resistant to lower myself to the conditions of others, but if we all have unsurpassable value that comes from God, then I am not lowering myself. I am lifting up those around me who do not realize their value is the same as mine because of how the world sees them.”

Everyone deserves to be seen and to be loved. I don’t know how many times I have driven past a homeless person on the side of the road and intentionally didn’t look at them. In Matthew 25 Jesus talks about how the things that we don’t do for the “least of these” we also didn’t do for Him. So every time I turn my face the other way to avoid that homeless person, I am turning my face away from Jesus. Jesus calls us to love those who are deemed unlovable by our world and to serve everyone.

“He gives us equal value that can’t be taken away by our choices or by the opinions of others.”

Jesus demonstrated the value God sees in us by dying on the cross. Jesus didn’t die on a cross for a certain people group, he died for the entire world so that we can ALL be saved from our sins.

“I don’t want to go home just to have my eyes blinded again to the lives around me. My eyes must stay open, must stay looking, must stay fixed on Christ.”

This one was hard for me to read, because my eyes have been blinded again. It’s easy when you are on a mission trip or at church camp to stay focused on God, because you wake up and live the day intentionally for him. It’s easy when we are constantly surrounded by a group of people working towards that common goal. It’s difficult when we go back home, because we allow the distractions of this world to infiltrate our intentionality of living a life for God.

“Live and love without labels.”

We may all come in different packaging, but deep down we were all created in God image and given unsurpassable value from him. One of the most complex things that was said during this time of reflection was about what someone saw when they were talking to a lady on the side of the road. She was described as “grace and holiness covered in dirt with cigarette in hand.” We are all made up of grace and holiness that comes from Jesus Christ, and we all covered with our own dirt and grime that we create, which He washes away and redeems us from.