Take a few deep breaths to center your heart and your mind as you prepare to meet with God.

Meditation on God

Hebrews 1 begins with these words: “Long ago God spoke many times and in many ways to our ancestors through the prophets.” God Himself has shown up in many powerful ways, but He often chooses to influence and intervene in situations through flawed, chosen, and divinely empowered people. Take a moment and think about someone you know who seems to have been chosen and empowered by God to speak God’s words and do God’s will in your life.

Teaching

Later the leaders sent some Pharisees and supporters of Herod to trap Jesus into saying something for which he could be arrested. “Teacher,” they said, “we know how honest you are. You are impartial and don’t play favorites. You teach the way of God truthfully. Now tell us—is it right to pay taxes to Caesar or not? Should we pay them, or shouldn’t we?” Jesus saw through their hypocrisy and said, “Why are you trying to trap me? Show me a Roman coin, and I’ll tell you.” When they handed it to him, he asked, “Whose picture and title are stamped on it?” “Caesar’s,” they replied. “Well, then,” Jesus said, “give to Caesar what belongs to Caesar, and give to God what belongs to God.” His reply completely amazed them. (Mark 12:13-17)

Give to Caesar what belongs to Caesar, and give to God what belongs to God. Here, Jesus is comparing two things–human beings and coins–by what image is on them, and as he does so, he is making a big claim that God first made in Genesis 1:27: “God created human beings in his own image.” That’s powerful, but what exactly does it mean?

In my immediate family, there is just myself, my mom, my dad, and my brother. One day, my mom found a picture of her dad at 8 years old standing outside his country school. He looked strikingly like my brother, so much so that when my mom showed him the picture, he said, “that’s me, but I don’t ever remember wearing that.” He looks like my grandpa on my mom’s side, but I look unmistakably like my dad. Every time my parents showed up to something new and had to meet a teacher, new coworkers, or new friends, people would never ask “who is this?”; they asked, “Is this your dad?”, usually followed by the words, “I could tell from the moment I saw him.” I am made in my dad’s image.

God is far beyond what we could comprehend in our wildest imaginations, but as a blessing to us, He has, in different ways and moments, revealed Himself to us in ways that we could understand. Through scripture and all the breath-taking ways He has done this, the clearest revelation of God is Jesus. Hebrews 1 says that “The Son is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of his being,” (Heb. 1:3a) and Colossians 1 says that “The Son is the image of the invisible God.” (Col. 1:15a) Out of all the pictures we have of God the Father, Jesus is the clearest and best one. He looks like His dad.

So, do we look like our dad? Well, yes and no. We were created with the Image of God in us, but through sin and the death that comes from it, we have messed it up and obscured it. In our broken state, those on the outside would look at us and say, “do you know God?” In our broken state, we look more like Caesar: self-seeking, power-hungry, defensive, impulsive, and greedy. The kinds of coins Jesus would have used as an example in this passage had an image of Caesar on them, usually surrounded by Latin words that displayed his various honors and titles, including claiming that he was the “son of god” or “the gods.” There would also sometimes be a crest that symbolized Rome, which would be similarly used to press the wax seal that closed an envelope, letting the recipient know who it was from. We see this same pressed crest in another story.

In Luke 15, Jesus tells the story of the prodigal son. This son seemed to be made in the image of Caesar. He asked for his inheritance early, squandered it on wild, sinful living, and ended up flat broke in the middle of a famine. He walked the walk of shame back to his father’s house, rehearsing his forgiveness speech, ready to ask to simply be one of his father’s servants instead of a son. Instead of the attitude the son was expecting, the father runs out to meet him with open arms and yells out to his servants to bring his son a few things: a robe, new sandals for his feet, and a ring. A family ring. This would be the ring with the family crest on it, identifying him again as a full member of the family he left. Now, every time he needed to show proof of his identity or send a letter, he would just show the ring that tied him to his father and his family.

How do we have the image of God, then? Well, God created us with it, but every time we have sinned, we have brought death to that image, distorting and maring it until it is unrecognizable to outsiders. It is still there, but only the person whose image we are made in would recognize it. When we submit and come back to God, giving to God what belongs to God, He heats our wax to soften us and presses His fresh image into us again. We were created in the image of God, but when we draw close to Him, people will come up to us and say, “Is that your dad? I could tell from the moment I saw you.”

Examination

There are many lists in the Bible that describe what God is like, including 1 Corinthians 13:4-7 and Galatians 5:22-23. They tell what He is actually like: patient, kind, faithful, joyful, and enduring through hard circumstances. Take a moment to think about qualities of your heavenly Father that you’d like to have too.

Memory Verse

As you go throughout your day today, remind yourself to submit to God forming His own image in you with these words from Jesus in Mark 12,

“Give to Caesar what belongs to Caesar, and give to God what belongs to God.” (Mark 12:17)