Made In His Image Part One - Created

God has been teaching me fascinating things recently, and I’m really excited to share some snippets. Perhaps they won’t be new ideas to you, but they were to me, and I think they’ve changed the whole way I think. It’s quite a lengthy topic, because you know what it’s like: when you start looking into something, you suddenly see and hear it everywhere. So I plan to do a few posts on the subject. That’s also exciting, because in all my years (ha, three) of blogging I’ve never done a series or like posts in several parts. 

It all started when I read these few paragraphs out of an amazing book, The Book That Made Your World, (and I’d recommend that book to everyone):

As I started rereading the Bible’s first chapter, I found a radically different view of the human self. It says that God created human beings in His image (“man” – both male and female). On one hand both dogs and I are creatures. We are similar in many ways. For example, we are both mammals. Yet, in fundamental ways we are very different. I cannot know the essence of my humanness by studying dogs. If I am made in God’s image, would not knowing God be essential to knowing myself? What does this first chapter of Genesis tell me about God and myself?

The Bible opens by declaring: “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.” God is the Creator. A dog is only a creature. What am I? If Genesis is right, then I am both a creature (made by God) and a creator (made in the image of the Creator). I am a creative creature.  The Book That Made Your World page 47

This brought a couple of things to my attention. We are made in the image of God. I mean, there’s no higher honour God could’ve bestowed on us. He could’ve made us after His imagination, but He wanted to give us more, and set us apart from the animal kingdom. He made us like Him. 

And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness… So God created man in His own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them. Genesis 1:26-27

Of course, I’ve known that verse for years, but I’d never really stopped to think about it. God made us like Him in more than physical likeness. So much that we put down to nature, hobbies, or interest is a God-given desire. The desire to be creative: God is creative. The desire to communicate: God communicates. The desire to provide: God provides. That push inside to create, communicate, provide, etc, is more than just interest or upbringing. It’s evidence that we were made by a creative, communicating, providing God, and we were made to be like Him. 

There’s a push in today’s world to find yourself, to be yourself. It’s everywhere. I’ve always agreed with it, but something just felt slightly not right, but I never knew what it was. I agree with being yourself, as opposed to being like everyone else, and changing to fit in. I agree with finding your own set of beliefs and principles and sticking to them. But, after reading those couple of paragraphs from The Book That Made Your World I realized what it was that didn’t settle with me. Society’s method of finding yourself is to look within, to dwell upon yourself. Honestly, it’s confusing to look in yourself for consolidation and identity. My head is a swirl of conflicting thoughts and emotions. That’s where this line came in, and to put it mildly, it made a lot of sense: If I am made in God’s image, would not knowing God be essential to knowing myself? 

It comes back to being made in the image of God. To use the dog example, and assuming dogs could reason, the only place a dog can look to be itself is within. There is no greater dog He was made to be like, patterned after. He cannot rise above himself. But, this is where we’re fundamentally different from animals: we were made in the image of God, to be like God. If we want to elevate ourselves, to find out who we’re really meant to be, we have to study the pattern, the One who we’re made to be like. We cannot rise if we’re not aspiring after anything higher than ourselves. 

Of course, there’s something in-between us and the ideal God has for us, and that’s sin. We’re fallen beings. But, God’s got a solution to that as well, and my mind has been swamped with the amazingness of His plans, so I’m looking forward to sharing that next time. :)

So tell me, what do you think? I’m really looking forward to hearing your thoughts and comments, because I want this to be a discussion, and time of sharing, not me preaching at you. What’s your take on the ‘be yourself’ craze? Do you find it fascinating that those desires, like to be creative for example, come from the fact that God made us to be creative, because He’s creative? What has God been teaching you lately?