It has been a long time since my last post. I am embarrassed over the time that has passed, having intended to quickly jot out a small four part series that would focus on the idea that we are made in the image of God, introducing the relevancy this idea has for our lives.
So diving back into the first area of the image of God that I wanted to touch, which is: Why is this idea relevant to me, to you, to ourselves as individuals?
Ponder these questions a bit.
What does it mean that I am made in the image of God?
What does that say about my identity?
This idea has profoundly impacted my self-understanding. I will tell of a little experience I had when I visited a small country church in Pennsylvania to be in a teaching session of a well-known Catholic teacher. This particular teacher popularizes a body of teaching that emphasizes the dignity of human beings, and human sexuality, in the light of being created in the image of God. At the end of the half-day session my mind was thoroughly blown. There was beauty that I had never even considered as we delved into the pre-sin history of man, and our intended relationship with God, ourselves, and one another.
At the end of the session I purchased by the guest speaker, met him and asked him to sign it for me. I felt a little raw emotionally because that kind of teaching has the power to find its way into woundeed areas of the heart, touching dignity, value, and sexuality.
So I handed the book to him, and told him what his teaching had meant to my life, how it had been impacting me, and just thanked him for doing what he is doing. At the end of our short conversation he looked at me and said, "Ryan, you are a beautiful man." And he said a short prayer for me.
I can tell you that I had never heard words like that before. There was not an ounce of flattery in those words or anything weird or funny. I honestly felt as though he was just admiring the beauty of God in a human being, which at that moment happened to be me. It was awesome. My thoughts were, if only we could all learn to look at one another that way.
So this idea of self-worth is strongly connected with the image of God, and is one of the most immediate effects I see it having on people. People, through negative experiences in life be it personal failures or negative opinions of others have of them can acquire a negative and false image of themselves. So when we talk about our true origin, we are talking about ourselves having a value that pre-dates anything we experienced in life, and nothing we experience in life negates our original value.
The image of God relates very strongly to identity. In fact, that scripture in Genesis 1:26 is a defining word. It is God identifying and defining man. What a beautiful identity!
Now so far we have see the image of God in relation to the "being" of life....in relation to what we are. But how about the "doing" of life? It's pretty simple. Image of God is what we are...that is in the noun form. Turn it into a verb and we take care the doing. We are to image God. Imaging God is our real business that makes life fulfilling.
But we know that that is the hard part isn't it: imaging God. In reality, we can't really do that to the full extent by ourselves. Because we weren't created to. Man is not an independent being. We are a being that is intended to live in union with Jesus, sharing and participating in all that He is and has and has done. That is why Paul in Romans 8:29, the image of God is connected to God's Son Jesus, saying that we were destined to be conformed to His image. Again, something we don't do ourselves, but something that happens when we respond to Him including us in all that He is has and has done.
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