The Contemplation That Restores the Image of Christ in You

Introduction

There comes a moment in the believer's life when you can no longer find the words. You come before the Lord, you simply stand there, and you realize you need him. Not what he gives. Him. Pastor Malu BIALUTA opens his message with this very sober observation: peace, comfort, and routine can become dangerous the moment they settle you into the feeling that you have already arrived. Solomon had peace, and he ended up with his concubines. Adam had the garden, and he let himself be deceived. We need God.

Following the Discipleship Camp experienced by the ICC TV Montreal congregation, the pastor picks up a thread left by the guest speakers: the battle over your image and the battle over your destiny are the two great fights of your life. And of the two, the image comes first. Because without a restored image, destiny remains out of reach.

The anchor text is short, but it opens up everything: "And we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image, from glory to glory, just as through the Lord, the Spirit" (2 Corinthians 3:18). This message invites you to understand what the image of God in you has suffered, and by what very concrete path the Father wants to restore it.

Outline of the Message

1. We Need God, Not What He Gives

Pastor Malu begins with a time of contemplation. He does not invite the congregation to ask for anything. He invites them to say to the Father, "You are what I want this morning." This is the prayer of the poor in spirit, of those who recognize they can do nothing without God. If you have already arrived, if you are already satisfied, you have no need to pray. But if you realize that without him you are dry, then the only reward you seek is himself.

The prophet Isaiah understood this. When he saw the glory of the Lord (in the year King Uzziah died, Isaiah 6:1), he fell to his knees and acknowledged his own wretchedness. A people who live satisfied, as though they had already arrived, are mistaken. We need God.

2. The Image Is the First Thing God Placed in Man

Genesis 1:26 says, "Let us make man in our image, after our likeness." The image is the starting point of man's creation. It is also the first thing man lost when he sinned. The proof: after the fall, Adam is still in the garden, it is God who has to drive him out of it. Adam did not first lose the garden. He first lost the image, and he hid.

Whoever loses the image loses everything, because everything else is only the consequence of the image. This is why restoring the image is the very reason for the work of salvation. If Jesus came to die on the cross, it is to restore God's image in you, because the Father's plan has always been to govern the earth through people who bear his image.

3. The War Over the Image Works on Your Perception

An image is not just a picture. It is a representation meant to shape perception. And the first thing the devil fights is your perception. When you sin, when you live far from God, the perception you have of yourself is no longer the one God has of you. The image you carry of yourself then keeps you from doing what God expects of you.

Pastor Malu insists: the image is first and foremost an identity. The word "identity" contains the word "identical." You carry an identity card because you are identical to other human beings. In the faith, you are first identical to the body, to the family, before you are identified by your own gifts or personal grace. When Jesus stops Saul on the road to Damascus, he does not say, "why are you persecuting my disciples?" He says, "Why are you persecuting me?" (Acts 9:4). It is a matter of the identical. If the image you carry leads you to despise your brothers and sisters, you have a problem with Christ himself.

The image also carries nature. It becomes influence. What you see when you close your eyes and think about yourself, what you see when you think about your future, all of that shapes what you become. God, for his part, told Jeremiah, "Before I formed you in the womb I knew you" (Jeremiah 1:5). You are not the product of chance, and the Father's plan for you is not a small plan.

4. Without a Restored Image, Destiny Is Impossible

Satan always attacks the image before he attacks the mission. You spend your time protecting your work, what you own, your plans. He, meanwhile, attacks your identity. Look at the temptation in the desert: "If you are the Son of God, command these stones to become bread" (Matthew 4:3). He does not start with the mission. He targets the "if you are." The identity. The image.

This is why Gideon, who presents himself as the least in the smallest tribe, hears the angel of the Lord call him "mighty warrior" (Judges 6:12). Gideon does not get to decide his own image. God restates it to him. The image determines authority, victory, holiness, power. When you know you are in Christ and that all authority has been given to you in his name, your behavior in the face of trial changes.

5. Love, Then Fullness

The first characteristic of the image of God is love. "Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love" (1 John 4:8). Before his power, before his strength, before his wisdom: love. And the yearly theme at ICC Montreal made the same point, "the year of the demonstration of first love."

When Adam and Eve sinned, the first thing they lost was agape love. Love is the seed, the nature, the capacity that corrects the image in us. All of 1 Corinthians 13 revolves around this: you cannot be patient with someone if the image you hold of them is not compatible with patience.

But love is not the end of the road. You have to aim further: fullness. "See to it that no one takes you captive through philosophy and empty deceit... for in him the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily" (Colossians 2:8-9). Loving God will make you do many things. God's love, on the other hand, leads you into fear, reverence, and being guided by the Spirit. There are words that are not inspired by God, and there are silences that are.

6. Two Pictures to Understand It: The Flipbook and the Sound That Shapes

To make the battle over the image concrete, Pastor Malu offers two analogies.

First, the flipbook. A flipbook is that small stack of pages where each page carries a slightly different image; flipped quickly, it creates the illusion of a moving cartoon. Your life works the same way. What you have lived through (childhood, wounds, upbringing, abuse, family examples) gets stamped page after page. When the moment comes, your reactions "animate" from those pages. Someone raised in a family where gossip flowed easily will gossip easily, without even sensing that they are sinning. A married sister who cannot consummate her marriage because a page of abuse is still stuck in her flipbook. Some church conflicts become inexplicable, that is the flipbook at work. The good news: contemplation erases pages and adds new ones, the ones God engraves through his Word.

Then, the violin and the sand plate. This is a well-known physics experiment: a bow drawn along the edge of a thin metal plate makes it vibrate, and fine sand poured onto it shifts to form precise geometric patterns. Change where you place the bow, and the pattern changes. In other words, sound gives shape to matter. Now the Bible says God created through the spoken word. The word is a sound over the earth, and the earth responds to it. In very practical terms, this means that what you hear engraves shapes into your soul. Eve listened to the serpent's voice before she looked at the fruit, and the fruit she had seen every day suddenly changed in appearance. The same is true in reverse: the Word spoken aloud engraves shapes of truth into your soul.

7. The Key: Contemplate

The great key given in this message is contemplation. "And we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image" (2 Corinthians 3:18).

Contemplation takes three concrete forms:

• Devotion. You go into your room, you shut the door, and the Father who sees in secret is waiting for you there (Matthew 6:6). Where your earthly father may have fallen short, the Lord's Prayer brings you face to face with the perfect Father. When you pray the Lord's Prayer, you are in contemplation.
• Meditation. You watch Jesus act, and you learn to act as he does. When you contemplate Jesus walking through trials, an image forms in you: you, too, walking through trials without being crushed.
• The Word read aloud. Because sound engraves shapes into the soul, you need to reread Scripture out loud. "The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want" (Psalm 23:1). "When I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil" (Psalm 23:4). Repeat it over your situation: over the desire for a child, over unemployment, over whatever trial you are facing. You start to see yourself seated at the table prepared before your enemies, your cup overflowing. The image changes.

8. Psalm 24: The Shift of Those Who Contemplate

Psalm 24 illustrates this movement. The first part establishes who the Lord is: "The earth is the Lord's, and everything in it, the world, and those who live in it" (Psalm 24:1). Then: "He who has clean hands and a pure heart, who does not lift up his soul to falsehood... he will receive blessing from the Lord" (Psalm 24:4-5). Contemplating this is letting God perform surgery on your heart.

Then comes the pause, "Selah." In the Psalms, when David marks a pause, what comes after is often a great revelation. And indeed, the second part of Psalm 24 shifts: "Lift up your heads, O gates!... that the King of glory may come in!" (Psalm 24:7). Those who contemplate always experience a shift. They walk through doors they could never have forced open on their own.

Key Takeaways

• Peace, comfort, and spiritual routine become dangerous when they make you believe you have already arrived. You need God.
• The image is the first thing God placed in man, and the first thing man lost. Restoring the image is the very meaning of salvation in Christ.
• The devil always attacks identity before mission. That is the "if you are" of Matthew 4:3.
• Your past stamps "pages" that shape your reactions (the flipbook). The sound of God's voice, by contrast, engraves shapes of truth into your soul.
• The key given by 2 Corinthians 3:18 is to contemplate: through devotion, through meditation, and through the Word read aloud.

Personal Application

1. When you close your eyes and think about your future, what do you see first? Does that image match what God says about you?
2. Which "pages" of your flipbook (a childhood wound, abuse, a word spoken over you, your upbringing) still drive your reactions today? Name them before the Lord this week.
3. What sounds (conversations, content, social media, music) are you letting engrave shapes into your soul right now? Is there some sorting to be done?
4. Over which specific situation will you begin, starting today, to read Psalm 23 and Psalm 24 out loud?
5. Take ten minutes alone, door shut: simply tell the Father, "you are what I want." Contemplate. Write down what comes.

Scriptures Cited

• 2 Corinthians 3:17-18 · "Now the Lord is the Spirit... we are being transformed into the same image, from glory to glory." (the message's anchor verse)
• Genesis 1:26-27 · "Let us make man in our image, after our likeness."
• Genesis 3 · the fall, and Adam hiding: the first thing lost is the image.
• Matthew 4:3 · "If you are the Son of God, command..." Satan attacks identity.
• Psalm 110:1 · "Sit at my right hand, until I make your enemies your footstool."
• 1 John 4:8 · "Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love."
• 1 Corinthians 13 · the hymn to love, the filter for every image of your brother or sister.
• Colossians 2:8-9 · "In him the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily."
• Matthew 6:6 · "Go into your room, shut your door, and pray to your Father who is in secret."
• Psalm 23 · "The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want."
• Psalm 24 · the psalm behind the "shift" of those who contemplate.
• Isaiah 6:1-5 · Isaiah sees the glory of God in the year King Uzziah died and recognizes his own wretchedness.
• Judges 6:12 · Gideon called "mighty warrior" while seeing himself as the least.
• Jeremiah 1:5 · "Before I formed you in the womb I knew you."
• Acts 9:4 · "Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?", the matter of the identical.
• Revelation 4-5 · the heavenly worship of the redeemed around the throne.

FAQ

Why does Pastor Malu insist so much on the image rather than on the mission?

Because Scripture shows that Satan always attacks identity before mission. In the wilderness temptation, he does not go after what Jesus is about to accomplish, he goes after what Jesus is: "If you are the Son of God..." (Matthew 4:3). As long as your image is false, your mission will not hold up. That is why you have to start by restoring the image God placed in you back in Genesis 1:26.

What is "contemplation" in this message, concretely?

It is not a vague meditation or a technique. Pastor Malu breaks it into three accessible practices: a time of devotion alone with the door shut (Matthew 6:6), meditating on the Gospels by "watching Jesus act," and reading the Word out loud, because sound engraves shapes into the soul, as the bow-and-sand-plate experiment illustrates.

Is the flipbook just fatalism? Am I doomed to repeat my past?

No. The analogy actually shows the opposite. Your "pages" (wounds, abuse, upbringing, family examples) explain a lot of your reactions, but they do not lock you in. Contemplation, the Word read aloud, and the name of Jesus can erase pages and write new ones. That is exactly what 2 Corinthians 3:18 promises: being "transformed into the same image, from glory to glory."