Genesis 1:26. Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness.”
There are lots of things in life that we will love, but they will never love us back. Growing up I loved the Philadelphia Seventy-Sixers basketball team. But they never loved me back. They didn’t even know me. In middle school, I loved all of my older sisters’ girlfriends. But they didn’t even know I existed. I had a pet cat named Snoopy that I loved. But that cat never loved me back. Not really. He pretty much did whatever he wanted to do and came around for food and shelter.
Like we said on Day 2, we were made from God’s love and we were made to be loved by God. But were we made by God simply to be loved by God, like a pet? The answer the Bible gives is actually way better. Better than being loved? Yes. We were made in the image of God, and that means we aren’t just loved, but we can also love like God does.
The image of God has been stamped into every human being. Every person alive bears God’s image and likeness. Nothing else in creation can make this wonderful claim. Not plants, birds, mammals, or even the angels. Only us. Every human life has the same goal to make the invisible God visible. But what exactly does that mean?
Our image. Notice the plural our (do you know what a plural is?). God didn’t say, “Let ME make man in MY image.” God said, “Let US make man in OUR image.” Why? Because God is a plural. God is a trinity. He is a loving community of three, Father, Son, and Spirit, that exists as one God. And that community of love is what we were made to image and make visible to the world.
What is better than being loved? Being able to love like God? To not only receive the love of God, but to give the love of God to others. God didn’t create us to just be loved; he created us to love him back. This is what makes life worth living. Not our accomplishments or achievements. Not our grades, or our batting percentage, or our popularity, or our likes on social media. Imaging God and his love is the meaning of life, nothing else.
In the Bible, the word image is connected to the idea of being a child. Do you look like either or both of your parents? Do you sound like them or act like them? I’m sure you do. Why do you? Because you were made in their image and in their likeness. You share their DNA (have you learned about DNA yet?).
Did you know that God the Father has a son that looks and acts just like him? He’s called God the Son. You know him as Jesus. God the Son has the same spiritual DNA as God the Father. The Bible says that God the Son, Jesus, is THE image of God the Father.
Colossians 1:15. [Jesus] is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation.
You and I are not THE image of God. Only Jesus IS God’s image. But we were made IN the image of God. Or we might say that we were made IN Jesus. Just like Jesus exists to look like the Father and sound like the Father and to do everything the Father would do, we were made to look like Jesus, sound like Jesus, and do everything that Jesus would do.
Obviously we are not very good at doing that. Our sin gets in the way of us looking, sounding, and acting like Jesus. The good news is that now, with Jesus living in our hearts, his image is being fixed in us so that we can slowly but surely start to be like Jesus again – not just loved, but able to love like God.
Questions: What do you love that doesn’t love you back? God loves you, do you love him back? In what ways do you look and act like your parents? In what ways can you look and act like Jesus today?
TLICfamily 