God Made Human Beings In His Image

2.20.23

In Genesis 1:26-7, at the end of the Creation Story, God said, “Let us make mankind in our image in our likeness….So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.” He created us all in His image, that is, every human being, all 7+ billion people on the planet today. They are all our neighbors, fellow creatures of God who created each of us in His image, so that we could come back to Him whenever we repented of our worldly ways. I think of that implanting as the Indwelling Spirit of God which lies in our deepest self, just waiting for the day when we seek His help, His love and forgiveness, His presence in our lives.

As we turn towards that Spirit of God within us, we activate our awareness of His help and support, His direction and guidance, His prayers for us and whoever we are praying for. God didn’t make us to be capable of perfection in loving Him or others, but He created us to be able to express His love and forgiveness, mercy and justice in this world, as we change our lives to reflect His presence in them, as He heals us of all that stands between us and Him. Over time, if we are truly following Him, then the fruit of the Spirit [Galatians 5:22-23] grow in us: peace, joy, love, patience, goodness, kindness, faithfulness, gentleness, and humility. And, eventually we come to the place where we are expressing God’s love to everyone, everywhere we go.

It is not the human kind of love that we are expressing, but that of the divine Lover who sends rain to fall and sun to shine on every single human, creature, and plant on this earth. Here’s an example of that human kind of love. A woman in my former church, walking through the church with others, exclaimed, “I love everyone, but I don’t have to like them.” This is not God’s love. God is our redeemer, no matter what we’ve done in our lives. He is the father in the Parable of the Prodigal Son, watching for each of us to come back to Him, to repent of our sin and self-orientation, so that He can pour out His welcome, His love, and restore us to our proper place in His household/kingdom.

As we have followed Jesus and He has been healing all the issues in our lives that have been highlighted by Him, we become capable of passing on God’s love and even feeling His love for us. Like the woman above will have to do, we have to give up our judgments and prejudices and egocentricity and sin, so that we can truly express God’s love to the people we meet, no matter what they have done and no matter who they are at the moment that we meet. God’s love passes through our healed selves directly to the person we are with. It doesn’t matter what color their skin is, nor what their education level is, nor what neighborhood they live in, or any other difference among us. We who have been healed of so much of our human nature can love any and every human beings, our brothers and sisters in Christ.

Questions to ponder over the week: Do I experience Christ in all the people I meet? Whom do I exclude from being a child of God? How Godlike is my love? Am I still choosing who I will like and love?

Blessing for the week: May we be the people of God who can see Christ in all the people we meet. May we bring God’s kind of love to every encounter. May with love ourselves as God loves us.

Check out my two websites: patsaidadams.com and deepeningyourfaith.com.

Two Announcements

1. I am giving away a 10-week journaling guide to Jesus’s Two Great Commandments. If you are interested, email me at patsadams@gmail.com and I will email it to you, free of charge.
2. My latest books, “Called to Help the Poor and Needy” and “A Study Guide to the Beatitudes and the Sermon on the Mount” are now in bookstores and on line. The first is about the more than 2,000 verses in the Bible which detail God’s instructions for caring for those in need. The second is a journaling/pondering guide to Jesus’s most complete sermon.