Made in the Image of God.

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

Through His Word, we learn mankind was made in the image of God. This does not relate in the physical sense, but rather we are made in the image of who God is. We, of all creation, are the only ones referenced as being such, and before the Fall, we catch a glimpse of what this means in a true sense.

Adam and Eve were the perfect creation of the likeness of our God, made to live in constant communication with our Creator. Mankind was made to share in His righteousness, His love and His reign over the earth. Having sin enter the world through the serpent separated us from God but did not negate the fact that we are still made in the image of Him.

Then the Lord God formed a man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being. (Genesis 2:7)

We live because of the very breath of God.

An incredible fact at its core, this establishes in each of us an identity directly linked to the Father. We share His spiritual, emotional and intellectual likeness and characteristics, having been created to live through intimate fellowship with Him.

A relationship with our Creator is what allows us to be spiritually alive. We are a reflection of Him; His desire being for His very attributes and glory to be displayed within and through us. We were made to exist as the reflected glory of the living God! It is true in every sense the we are created in His image; we were created as a display of the goodness of our Father, made to consist only of the light within Him.

This is the message we have heard from him and declare to you: God is light; in him there is no darkness at all. (1 John 1:5)

When we allow Satan in, as he is whom is in the world, we begin to instead display the darkness and the attributes of him. The righteousness of God becomes the deceit of the serpent. We exchange the Truth for lies and spiritually we die.

He was a murderer from the beginning, not holding to the truth, for there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks his native language, for he is a liar and the father of lies. (John 8:44)

And so the battle for our souls began. It was a fatal choice man and woman made in the garden. It brought sin and shame. It brought guilt and accusation. It brought both physical and spiritual death, just as God had said it would. 

…but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat from it you will certainly die.” (Genesis 2:17)

Out of His great love, the Father had kept the knowledge of good and evil from His children as we try to do for our own children, in His likeness. The fruit, the knowledge, made us aware of the darkness. It delivered to us all of the things we cannot bear in the world; the very things that are not in His likeness, but are instead the image of Satan. Praise the Lord for sending One, our Jesus, to deliver us from the very things we had originally grabbed rebellious hold of through the lie!

For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. (John 3:16)

Jesus is the very testimony of the great Love of the Father, and the only means by which mankind can once again display the image of God, to be transformed once again into His likeness.

And we all, who with unveiled faces contemplate the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into his image with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit. (2 Corinthians 3:18)

He has not left His children without a means of reconciliation, and this gift became available the moment our Lord declared, “It is finished. ” The Holy Spirit helps us to more and more reflect who our mighty God is, shining His light into the darkness of this world. We are indeed being transformed back into the image of Him who so lovingly and sovereignly created us.

Being created in His image, we have every good ability to grab hold of this gift of life He has given us. It is, however, our free will choice to decide: do we want to display the glory of the King in this world, or would we rather live in self-righteous pride as Satan chose to do so long ago? Do we want to sit at the right hand of the Father with our kinsman Redeemer, or would we rather eternally suffer in the pit?

It takes faith to look past the lies of the accuser. It takes courage to live our lives beyond the fear. It takes a strength beyond our own, which He so lovingly supplies through His Spirit. Oh, that mankind would taste and see that the Lord is good!

But that is not the way you learned Christ!— assuming that you have heard about him and were taught in him, as the truth is in Jesus, to put off your old self, which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires, and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds, and to put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness. (Ephesians 4:20-24)