“So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.”
“And God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good…”
Genesis 1:27, 31 (RSV)
After God made each part of creation He looked at it and said that it was good, but after creating the first man and woman, He found it to be, not just good, but very good.
One might conclude that by adding human beings to His creation, it made Him happier, since we are the only part of creation that is made in His image. There is a divine part of God within each of us, placed there from the beginning.
God sees something in us, that we cannot always see in ourselves or in each other. Because of original sin, His divine image isn’t apparent or obvious at first. It is sometimes hidden deep within a person, but God can always see His divine image in everyone, and He pursues each one of us until we link it up with Him.
God is invisible, a Spirit, so how is man created in His image?
Humanity is the only part of creation that was made with the capability to know and love their creator. We’ve all been given a free will to choose for ourselves whether we will love God or not. Within our freedom is our ability to image God’s love, in giving ourself to others. His image in us makes us capable of this, and it’s done by entering into relationships with other persons. Every human individual already possesses the dignity of these divine given traits. It’s not within us only by virtue of what we believe, although faith enhances it, but it’s within all of us because of creation.
Living without faith or a relationship with God, leaves that divine part in us, unfulfilled. Until we recognize that only God can fill that void, we journey through life as broken people. We search for love in all the wrong places, and expect to receive it from other broken people, which only results in restlessness and frustration.
God modeled divine perfect love, by giving Himself to us. Through the second person of the divine Trinity, He became incarnated as a human being. He took the physical form of a man, so that He could reach out to us, express affection, touch people, hug people, laugh and cry with them, and look into their eyes and speak to all who He met. What a privilege that generation of people had to see, hear and be touched by Jesus.
(I’m a little jealous, to be honest.)
While He was here, Jesus asked all of us to yield to Him, saying it in several ways, throughout the gospels, “Come unto Me…Abide in Me…Follow Me…Receive Me.”
Those are words that require a response, and when we respond to Him, He restores the original beauty within us, and brings out that self giving nature that He placed in us from the start. There is a precious piece of the divine in all of us. We are all redeemable, and were meant to find our link with the divine, through an intimate relationship with the God who took the first step to come to us.
This is why, after God looked at the first human couple He made, He called them “very good.”
Even today, He looks at each person seeing His divine part in us, and how “very good” our life can be, as we yield ourselves to Him.
Lord, help us to uncover more of the divine nature you have placed within us, so that we can love as you love, in a free and self giving way. I pray you bless and restore all broken relationships today in Jesus’ name. Amen