Image is Everything

We understand the world through images. Our will, and the choices we make out of that will, are based on the images that are stamped in our hearts. Before our cognitive mind ever engages, our heart has already filtered any incoming information, senses, or experiences through the images that define who we are: our identity, who our people are, and what matters most to us (Our attachments). Neurologists explain that this thing I am describing which as Christians we call the heart, is actually the largest and dominant part of our brain. Based on the images we have stamped within us, and how they match up with what is happening, as sensory image enters our mind, that part of our brain sends immediate signals to our physical heart, our gut, releasing neuro-chemicals and triggering or freezing emotions and physical actions.

We then get that same information in the cognitive side of our brain, where we can process is, compare it to other experiences, ask questions, do research, and come to conclusions. But the reality is that our cognitive brain is a subsystem of our heart (the dominant side of our brain). When the heart images don’t match up with the cognitive processing, it is the heart images that exert dominance. The potential negative result is we can end up knowing something, expressing belief in something, expressing something is the right or good thing to do, and yet still do the wrong thing, because of the images and attachments of our hearts. On the other hand, we can be in compromising situations, or places where logic might lead us to do the wrong thing, but having the right attachments and images stamped in our hearts will cause us to go against the current and choose the right ways of God in the face of a world and culture that offer a very different definitions of good and right and wrong.

That's why God tells us to 'Guard your heart above all else, for it is the source of life. (Prov 4:22) We are told that we were made "in the image of God." His image is imprinted upon our hearts and is intended to define our identity and guide our lives. For those who have some computer savvy, the image of your heart is the operating system of your life. The rebellion of humanity pushed the image of God aside and set up a multitude of other images clamoring to rule our lives. As we choose those false images (idols) we reject our God given identity, and instead take up the ways of sin and the flesh, violating God, ourselves, and those around us with our unGodly words and actions. We become sinners, and back to the computer operating system idea, our systems crash around us.

Repentance is when we reject the false images we have set up as gods in our hearts, and submit to the rule of our Creator God, embracing the image of Jesus as the defining identity, the only one who can offer us unconditional acceptance, intimacy, and belonging. We invite and cooperate with God in installing a new operating system in our hearts, a living system that actually eventually remakes every part of us so that we become new people and a new creation.

Here are a few versus that explain this idea, which is all over both the Old and New Testaments:

So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. (Gen 1:27)

Just as we have borne the image of the man of dust, we shall also bear the image of the man of heaven. (1 Cor 15:49)

He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature, and he upholds the universe by the word of his power. (Heb 1:1)

He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. (Col 1:15)

And have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator. (Col 3:10)

And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit. (2 Cor 3:18)

This is so important because if we fill ourselves up with knowledge and train ourselves in church practices, but we don't accept the new operating system and take up the image of God as the defining and driving force of our hearts and thus all our lives, then we won't become new people. We will find ourselves constantly falling back into the old patterns of false image driven life, even when our cognitive mind knows better.

So how is that "operating system" swapped out? How do we actually cultivate the image of God in our hearts? Do we need to memorize more verses, or read the Bible more? No, those things operate on the cognitive side of our brain. They are super important. But the images of our heart are relational stamps, and they only get changed out in relational contexts. Meditating on the joyful places where God has and is speaking into your life, practicing gratefulness, commitment to deep loving relationships pursuing God together, times of listening prayer and silence, practicing not just reading the Bible for knowledge or content, but to allow the Spirit to speak through it, and to find ourselves in the pages of scripture. And yes, practicing discipleship by allowing the stamp of God in our lives to bump up with and provide an alternative to the idols of this world. In the end, this is the work of mission, to put the image of God against this world, and let his light shine. And when it does, it doesn’t just change the world, it changes us, from the inside out.