Pray First

Read Genesis 1: 27

“You look just like your mother!” I heard this so many times growing up. As a young teenager, I wasn’t very impressed with that analogy. But when I hear it now, I love it!  What happened to make the same comment have two such different effects? I got to know my mom. I saw her devotion to care for our family, cook meals, tend to the garden, attend all our sports activities, work to help pay for my college, joyfully visit my elderly grandparents, visit her friends who lost loved ones and take them a meal, take care of babies in the nursery so that exhausted mommies and daddies could have a few undistracted moments with God. I never heard her complain. I saw my mom’s heart. And I want to be just like her. “You look just like your mother” is the best compliment! 

“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 

God is a masterful designer who created everything from nothing! From just the first chapter of Genesis, we learn that He created the heavens and the earth. He created light and separated it from the dark. He divided the sea from the dry ground. He created vegetation on the earth. He made the sun, moon and stars. He created the sea creatures and birds. He fashioned all of the land animals. And for his grand finale of creation, the most spectacular of all, on the sixth day, God created mankind in his own image. He created us to be in relationship with each other, with creation, and with him.  

All that he created has a relationship with all that he created. When I think of the biology and physiology of the human body and plants I am overwhelmed at how interconnected they are. What we need to breathe and what plants need for food are interdependent.  We breathe oxygen into our lungs to nourish all of our tissues. Our bodies breathe out the leftover carbon dioxide produced by our tissues. Plants use that carbon dioxide, along with light from the sun and water stored in their roots, to make their own food (photosynthesis) and release oxygen back into the air for us! Now that’s barely even the tip of the iceberg regarding the interconnection of creation. But isn’t his creativity mind-blowing?!  

He created us in his very image. We always think about that in the physical; two eyes, two ears, a nose, a mouth, two arms, two legs, and so forth. But what if we also bore the image of God’s character? What if, as we grow and mature, we took on more and more of his character? Oh that people would say, “You look just like the Father.”  

God is love. God is kind. God is compassionate, Merciful, Forgiving, Gracious, Faithful. God is good, just, patient, slow to anger. God is a promise keeper. God is a comforter. 

God made the ultimate sacrifice–his son Jesus died on the cross for us. 

He is intelligent, creative, and artistic! He created YOU, to be an image bearer!  

He sent Jesus into this world to live a perfect life, to show us what it looks like to live in the image of God. He was God in flesh.  Jesus said, “I and the Father are one.” (John 10:30)

You may not have grown up in a family with good examples of how to live like Christ. You may not have been trained in the ways a child should go. You may never have been taught the ways of God or his characteristics.  

Or, you may have grown up with all these good examples and teachings. And you may or may not have tried to follow them. But God created us to live a life that looks as much like him as we can possibly achieve here on this earth.  

Who do you people say you look like? Who do you want to look like? Live like?  

“Be imitators of God, as beloved children; and walk in love, just as Christ also loved you and gave Himself up for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God as a fragrant aroma.” Ephesians 5: 1-2

But sin. We all sin and fall short of the Glory of God. We all fail to bear the image of God. 

But God: God loves us so much he made the ultimate sacrifice; he sent his only son into the world to die for us, so that we could have life.  

We cannot live a life in the image of God without the salvation of Jesus Christ, without him as our savior and king. We are lost without him. We fall short without him. Our pride gets in the way. Our selfishness gets in the way. Our way gets in the way.  

He is the King of Kings. He is all-powerful. He made us, he loves us, and he can change us. In all of our own efforts we cannot be good, we cannot be forgiving, or gracious, or patient, or kind, or slow to anger, or faithful, or holy. We will fail. But with God through Christ Jesus, we can gradually begin to look more and more like his image. We can love better. We can forgive better. We can be more patient and kind and faithful, and gracious. We have a king who is for us, not against us. We need this King to be the king of our hearts so that we can have a changed heart. We need the King of Kings to create in us a clean heart so we can have a heart for others and a heart for God.  

“Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me.” Psalm 51:10

“Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God–this is your true and proper worship. Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.” Romans 12:1-2

Do you know my King? His name is Jesus. He is the way, the truth and the life. No one comes to the father except through him. (John 14:6) There are many attributes of God that we will never be able to achieve. We will never be omniscient, omnipresent, or sovereign. But with Christ in us we can look a little more like our Father every day.  

In one of his sermons in 1976, Dr. S.M. Lockridge delivered some of the most powerful words ever spoken describing the King of Kings. I urge you to find this portion of his sermon on YouTube and worship the King, my king, your king. You can find it here.

“If you don’t have a solid theology of the nature of God, you won’t find value in being made in God’s image” quote by Jackie Hill Perry.  

I hope you are enjoying our new SoulGrown devotionals, “Water for the Soul.” I encourage you to continue to follow as we discover more and more about the character, the image, of God, and more of his desire to give us second chances. 

 

Find Tracy on Facebook at Tracy Fields Todd, Writer, and on Instagram at @tracyftodd.