Let Us make man in Our image

Then God said, "Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; and let them rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over the cattle and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth." (27) God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.

Genesis 1:26-27

It was agreed in heaven that we would be created in the image and likeness of God. It was heavens plan that we would be a people of God, men and women of God. Yet living our lives on the earth with this identity is one of the hardest things we do. There is barely a moment when we are not being tried to leave behind our identity and be conformed to the identity of this world.

God is content within Himself. One way we live out our identity in God is this contentment too. It is enough to be like Him and all the things we do, all the striving to be something, is the influence of the world seeking to remake us into another image. Even the most devout believer is hourly tempted to add to their identity the ways of the world. If you are in business, you face the pressure to add to your calling the acceptance and ways of the world. You will be pressured to conform to what the world thinks a business person ought to be and to deny the simple devotion of first being a believer and having all things follow that. So too the Mom will not be left alone to be a loving Mother but pressured to live up to the worlds standard of mothering. She will be tempted to go beyond devotion to Christ and perform in such a way that the never satisfied world will be happy with her.

So what specifically may the world be seeking to remove us from? What is the spirit of this age and the rulers of this world seeking to break off of our lives? One thing is fellowship and communion with God. God said, “Let us”. In His nature God is communion and fellowship. Humanity was created like no other creature, with heightened capacity to have fellowship and communion. We not only gather in herds (cities and towns) but we build family units of love, protection, devotion, support and training.

The anti-Christ spirit wants you to build your life on the identity of being alone. It desires that you feel you must be independent, self- sufficient and thus, disconnected from the Creator. God on the other hand, desires that you and I live in the reality He made for us, the reality of unbroken fellowship. At any moment in time we have access to God. God is always with us. We are made to live our entire lives in fellowship, community and felt companionship. Even when God hides himself from us, it is for deeper and more intimate communion.

Have you ever been tempted to quit the faith because you did not feel like God is real, you wondered if He was there? Maybe you judged what God was doing by a lack of His felt presence. Somewhere deep within us we are aware of this reality of “if God is real we should feel Him, encounter Him”. This is one of the battle grounds. The whole fallen world is against you. The whole system of fallen humanity desires that you do not live in community with God.

To take a step toward fellowship with God turn away from the images of this world. Turn away from striving to earn or receive status and value from the people of this world. Embrace the realty of your createdness, the reality that you were made for fellowship with God. You can live each moment of your life in communion with Him. Even when you mind fails to recognize it, your spirit will abide in union. It is not good for you to be alone. The more you silence the voices of this world which seek to make you into their image, the more you will be able to hear His voice resounding in your life. It is not easy, but few eternal things are.