All the plants and
animals that God created were made “according to its kind”. But God took a different tack with man. “Let us make man in our image, after our
likeness”. And He did. Then He breathed His Spirit into man and he
became a living creature.
When man created
his sons they were made in his image, in his likeness. The image of God was tainted and
diluted. God’s perfect nature was
corrupted with man’s human nature and caused a different world of people to
inhabit the world then God had originally intended. This corruption was sparked by man’s
rebellion and continues throughout the earth to this day; an earth now filled
with chaos and violence.
The tension
between God’s nature and human nature becomes a spiritual war within every
human being. We are continually given a
choice between who to follow and obey; Spirit of flesh. God appeals through the Spirit. God’s adversary, Satan appeals through the
flesh. In these days of waiting for
Jesus to return it appears that the imposed self serving ruler of this world
Satan is winning. But I know the end of
the story. He is already judged and
condemned and soon he will be sentenced and his rule will end. But what are God’s People, His children
suppose to be doing now; how are we to be living until that Day of Days comes?
Since we were originally created in God’s image and likeness it makes sense to
me that we should be reflecting God with our lives and our actions.
God is Spirit so we should reflect the
attributes and fruits of the Spirit in all we do to all we come in contact with
and interact with in our day to day lives.
That means living lives of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness,
goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self control.
God is love so we
should be reflecting the attributes of love in all we do and to all we come in
contact with and interact with in our day to day lives. That means being patient and kind, not being
envious or boastful, not being arrogant or rude. It means not insisting on our own way, not
being irritable or resentful, not rejoicing at wrong doing but rejoicing with
the truth. We are to never stop loving
because love never ends. This means we
must bear and endure all things, believe the best about all things, and find
hope in all things.
This is a tall
order and Jesus amps it up by teaching and showing that this love isn’t only
for those who love us but it is also for those who hate us, persecute us, for
strangers and for our enemies. This
can’t be done in our flesh and human nature.
It is too tall an order to do this on our own. Only the Spirit of God living in us can do
this.
We must also
demonstrate this love, patience, and endurance towards ourselves because we are
not yet perfect. We need to remember
that now we see through a mirror dimly and God’s image that is to be in us is
still in the works and will be until that day of days when we see Him face to
face and we, each one of us will be fully known as we have been fully known,
complete in God’s image and likeness, just as we were created to be.
So for now our
work is to make good choices; choices that result in decreasing our temporary
fleshly human nature and increasing our eternal Spirit filled nature within
us. The battle has already been fought
by Jesus. Now we are to live into that
victory that is our inheritance from our Father.
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