There is this story of a little child in Sunday school. She is drawing a picture and the teacher ask her what she is drawing. “God” she answered. “But no one knows what God looks like”, said her teacher. To which the child responded, “they will know what He looks like when I am finished”. We all have a picture of God and this picture drives your life. In South Africa there are a lot of people who believe that there is a white God and a black God. Some believe in an angry God and others in a God that is always smiling.
In our Oasis rhythm we start from the premise that we are made in the image of God. But what is God’s image like? Tozer said, “What comes into our minds when we think about God is the most important thing about us.”
We believe that Jesus came in a person into the dust streets of our lives in order to help us draw a picture of God. He used His life as a pencil and His words as coloring. In Him we change our thoughts about God. In 1 John 4 the apostle John helps us with drawing God. He writes that, “God is love” (v16). But God’s love is not something intangible it is something he describes in the beginning of the book as hearing, seeing and touching.
At Oasis we believe that God is love. When our image of God changes to have love at its center it influences the way we see, hear and touch those around us. What image do you have of God?