Considering Others, and Ourselves

We Christians, all of us, are being transformed into the image of Jesus from one degree of glory to another (2 Corinthians 3:18). 

The implications of this truth are staggering. 

Going into the sermon this past Sunday, I had thought about one implication that didn’t make it into manuscript, though I chatted about it briefly with some of you after the service. It has to do with how we perceive one another, and then how we perceive ourselves.

Considering Others

What if we saw one another today in light of the glory we will reflect in the future?

As sure as Jesus is real so sure will we be transformed into his image. We will be like him (1 John 3:2), the man of heaven (1 Corinthians 15:49). One day we will be able to look at one another and see the glory of Jesus shining from our faces. And if that will be certain in the future, why not look at one another today in that light? 

Brothers and sisters, we will be radiant in the future, can we not be a little patient with one another today? Can we not sacrifice our comforts to meet a need? Can we not weather some pain, even disappointment, knowing that in the end glory will be the result? What impact would it have on a gospel community if everyone were committed to see one another’s glory-selves? I’m not sure the world has ever seen such a thing. Shall we give it go?

Considering Ourselves

I really enjoy live albums — records of a live concert. My favorite band has put out several of them, and I listen to them all the time. On the latest live album, just before the front man introduces a new song, he gives the preface: “This is for all the people who don’t feel like you’re enough.”

Never mind the song that follows, I care about that statement. I have heard it a hundred times since the album was released, and still, this morning when I heard it, it made me lean in all over again. It resonates, doesn’t it? Who wouldn’t perk up to a statement like that? Who couldn’t help but think this song is for “me”?

So I hear the statement again, I sit on the edge of my seat, and I always cringe a little … and I cringe because I suspect that countless people will think the solution to that statement, to that feeling of not being enough, is something like “But I am enough!”

People feel like they’re not enough and they look to God to change their minds: “Tell me I’m enough, God! Tell me I’m valuable!” Some people think that’s what the gospel is for. 

It’s not. 

And this is relevant to our transformation because we must be careful not to mistake our glorification to be some kind of self-esteem project. We must remember that God will complete the work he began in us (Philippians 1:6) — we will be like Jesus — but that is not the affirmation of our worth. It’s the affirmation of his love. 

It is misguided self-talk that answers “I’m not enough!” With “God tells me I’m enough!” The wonder of the gospel is that indeed we are not enough, but God loves us anyway. And he loves us so deeply, so completely, that he transforms us. The reality of our transformation then, and the little signs evidenced along the way, don’t prove our enoughness, they prove his grace. His grace. His. 

Jesus is the hero. Can you rest in that when you consider yourself? Would you?