For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the likeness of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. (Romans 8:29)
As children grow up, they often become increasingly like their parents. Certain family characteristics begin to be more obvious: the shape of the nose, the lie of the hair, the way they walk or stand. It isn’t too long before people are saying, "Oh - he’s his father’s son!" or "She looks just like her mother!" The family likeness is beginning to show.
The family likeness certainly showed in Jesus. Everything He did, He did with the compassion of the Father; everything He spoke, He spoke with the kindness of the Father. In fact, He was so much "His Father’s Son" that he could say to his disciples, "Anyone who has seen Me has seen the Father" (John 14:9).
But this matter of the family likeness does not stop there; for God wants us to reflect the family likeness too! Of course, it goes without saying that none of us could ever totally and completely reflect everything that our heavenly Father is. But each of us can reflect something of what He is like, so that – together, as His people – the world can see look at us and say, "Ah! So that’s what God is like!"
Of course, if this were a task that were simply left to us, we would be lost before we even began! But thankfully, God has not left us to struggle along in our own efforts; rather, He has promised the gift of his Holy Spirit, Who comes and fills us and lives within us, working on us from the inside out. It is as we let Him do his work that we begin to show more of "the fruit of the Spirit" (Galatians 5:22) and begin to be transformed increasingly into His likeness.
Today, ask the Spirit to fulfill God’s promise that more and more of the family likeness will be seen in you.
And we, who with unveiled faces all reflect the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into his likeness with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit. (2 Corinthians 3:18)
Copyright © 2017 Martin Manser and Mike Beaumont
