“I can never know in advance how God’s image should appear in others. That image always takes on a completely new and unique form whose origin is found solely in God’s free and sovereign act of creation. To me that form may seem strange, even ungodly. But God creates every person in the image of God’s Son, the Crucified, and this image, likewise, certainly looks strange and ungodly to me before I grasped it.” (Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Life Together)

I like things predictable. When I think of something being “from God” there is a checklist in my mind that is going to pop up and those boxes of “God-like” need to be checked. Then I will know it’s “of God.”

Bonhoeffer’s lesson was important. What does it look like to have “God’s image”? When does God’s image show up?

Bonhoeffer learned along the way that he could not predict just what it looked like. Images he would have interpreted as “not of God” in the past became something else under the direction of the Holy Spirit.

Think of Peter on the roof in prayer in Acts 10. He is hungry and the Lord lowers a sheet down full of animals Peter could eat. Except, Peter had in his mind what was “of God” and what was not “of God” and those animals were in the “not” category. In his self righteousness he refused to eat. He knew what was right!

The Lord had to teach him about what was really “of God” and then sent Peter off to witness to Gentiles, who were definitely not “of God.” Peter had pre-determined what the image of God was in other humans, and he knew Gentiles didn’t have that image of God. Until, of course, the Lord showed up and all of a sudden here is a group full of the Spirit and definitely demonstrating the image of God in their lives.

“The Christian community should not be governed by self-justification, which violates others, but by justification by grace, which serves others. Once individuals have experienced the mercy of God in their lives, from then on they desire only to serve.” (Bonhoeffer)

We need a life of service to others. To the community. We need to look harder at what God is doing in others and stop asserting where God’s image “is” and “isn’t.”

Bonhoeffer calls for more humility in each of our lives. He points out that Paul regularly referred to himself as the worst of sinners (1 Tim. 1:15). We need that awareness in our lives. We need humility to keep us from self-justification. We are not the arbiters of God’s image. When he shows up, we need to be more aware that it could be just about in any person!