In His Image

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A Compilation Oct 02, 2014

As for me, I shall behold your face in righteousness; when I awake, I shall be satisfied with your likeness.—Psalm 17:15

Beloved, we are God’s children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is.—1 John 3:2

Image possessors

From the very beginning, God’s plan has been to make you like his Son, Jesus. This is your destiny … God announced this intention at Creation: “Then God said, ‘Let us make human beings in our image and likeness.’”

In all of creation, only human beings are made “in God’s image.” This is a great privilege and gives us dignity. We don’t know all this phrase covers, but we do know some of the aspects it includes: Like God, we are spiritual beings—our spirits are immortal and will outlast our earthly bodies; we are intellectual—we can think, reason, and solve problems; like God, we are relational—we can give and receive real love; and we have a moral consciousness—we can discern right from wrong, which makes us accountable to God.

The Bible says that all people, not just believers, possess part of the image of God… But the image is incomplete and has been damaged and distorted by sin. So God sent Jesus on a mission to restore the full image that we have lost. (John 1:9)

What does the full “image and likeness” of God look like? It looks like Jesus Christ! The Bible says Jesus is “the exact likeness of God,” “the visible image of the invisible God,” and “the exact representation of his being.”—Rick Warren

In His likeness

In the first chapter of the first book of the Bible we are told that “God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him.” In other words, God made us very much like Himself in many ways, in His image and His likeness. We are like God! We have the majesty of choice, and we are similar to God in our thinking and in our emotions and in our personalities.
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When man chooses to rebel against God and go his own way, he suffers the consequences of rebellion against God’s law of love, which brings misery, suffering, man’s inhumanity to man, cruelty, atrocities, wars, economic ills, mental anguish, and death.

God is interested in our decisions. He’s concerned to see if, when we are given the great majesty of choice, we will make the right choices. Of course, He is sad to see when we make the wrong choices. This is why He put us here and this is what we’re here to learn: how to make the right decisions. So God has had to give us the opportunity to have our own way and choice to see what we will do..—David Brandt Berg

A personal God

God’s Word ascribes emotions to God: love, hatred, anger, repentance, grief, compassion, indignation, abhorrence, patience, longsuffering, joy, and others. Such emotions are attributed to person-hood.

Nothing showed that God is personal as clearly as His revelation of Himself in Jesus. Jesus was God walking the earth, and He was personal in every way, in every act, so much so that He personally died so that we could receive salvation.

Our God is not some faraway disinterested being. He is a God who is personal, who has a relationship with His creation. He has made Himself known to us through His Word. He has shown us some of what He’s like. He is interested in us as individuals. He has made a way for us to live with Him forever, through salvation. Through belief in Jesus, God the Son, we become God’s children, which enables us to touch Him personally, to communicate with Him, to hear His voice, to share our hearts with Him. He communes with us, abides in us, and loves us. We commune with Him, abide in Him, and love Him. We have a personal relationship with the Personal God. How incredibly wonderful!—Peter Amsterdam



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