One of the Best Ways To Honor God's Holiness (Part 2)

“Whoever sheds human blood, by humans shall their blood be shed; for in the image of God has God made mankind." Genesis 9:6


"Whoever claims to love God yet hates a brother or sister is a liar. For whoever does not love their brother and sister, whom they have seen, cannot love God, whom they have not seen."
1 John 4:20


Everyone you know is made in God's image and likeness.  They are a kind of holiness.  Different from you.  Utterly so.  How do you react to their difference?


Do you realize that every mind you encounter in conversation is a holy mystery, utterly unknown to you unless revealed to you?  The Word of God says,


For who knows a person's thoughts except their own spirit within them? In the same way no one knows the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God. 1 Corinthians 2:11


Every time someone talks to you or shares his thoughts or her feelings, you are experiencing a kind of holiness.  A mystery of divine identity.  How does this affect you?  If you don't honor and revere the images of God in your life, those who are utterly not you, then the word of God says you cannot respect the one who is infinitely unlike you, the only true God.


One of the best ways to honor God's holiness is to honor the holiness of his images and likenesses:
THE HOLINESS OF PEOPLE.


How do you do this?


Embrace the mystery of people, that you have no real control over them at all.  You don't know what they are thinking or why they are thinking it.  You don't know what they're going to do next, or why they're going to do it. 


Imagine those you love deeply.  Do you have any real control over whether they will love you back?  Imagine you and a friend are at a coffee shop and she is staring off in the distance.  You ask her, "What are you thinking about?" There is a pause between your question and her answer.  How do you know that she is not changing her thought at that moment to a more "acceptable thought," and telling you the changed thought instead of what she was really thinking when you asked her?


This is the position we are in all of the time:  we have to trust people with their thoughts and feelings.  We have to trust that they are telling us who they really are.  And they have to trust you the same way.


This is the beauty and mystery of being in relationships.  First with God. Then each other.  Having things in common is not the problem.  It's the mystery of being holy, being different utterly, that is scary. But it's a good scary.  If the world was full of beings exactly like you and me, there could be no real intimacy.


So the next time you talk to someone, embrace their complete and utter difference from you.  That they don't see things the way you see them at all.  This doesn't mean conflict or debate at all.  It doesn't mean disconnection.  It actually means the opposite.  When you seek to see a man as he is, and honor a woman for not being what you are at all, you get to know them in the most real sense of connecting.  If you can do this with people who are  the holiness of God likeness, you can do it with God Himself.


One of the best ways to honor God's holiness is to honor the holiness of His likenesses on earth: 


The people you already know in your life.