Get With the Program

With the tongue we praise our Lord and Father, and with it we curse men, who have been made in God’s likeness…My brothers, this should not be. James 3:9,10 ?NIV

This is another verse that I find challenging. What to do about difficult or evil people? James tells us that we have to somehow be cognisant of the fact that all men are made in God’s likeness.  That idea is hard to understand.  In what way are we made in God’s image? Is it our conscious knowledge of self? Is it our ability to choose between good and evil, or to know the difference? Is it our awareness that there is a God? It’s hard for me to put God beside some people and come up with any likeness, and yet the Bible tells me that all people have been made in God’s likeness.

We are called to love all people, even our enemies or those who hurt us or others. We are to bless everyone, and to pray for everyone.  What a big expectation that is for me . Surely I can only begin to walk in that direction if I ask for God’s help to remember that every person is special to God no matter how far they have gone away from him. I need to try to grasp that God’s view is vaster and deeper than mine. When I’m critical and judgemental, I need to get with the program.