by T. Austin-Sparks
First published in "A Witness and A Testimony" magazines 1954-56, Vol. 32-5 - 34-1.
The whole Word of God is occupied with this: What is God like? On one side there is the constant implication, or at least inference: “God is not like that — but God is like this”. In the days of the Lord Jesus, the whole idea of the most religious people — the Jews themselves, and all the Jewish rulers — was a false conception of God; and the Lord Jesus in their midst was, by His very presence, His very nature, as well as by His teaching and His activity, saying, “No, God is not like that; God is like this”. God said: “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness”. The first, the constant, and the final intention of God is to make man like Himself. And the test of everything is just there — how much we are like the Lord.... All that matters is that people should be seeing in our lives, in a growing way, what the Lord is like, that there should be coming into view — maybe all too slowly, maybe in all too small a measure — something of the likeness of the Lord in us.
