Self-image vs. God-image

     What makes you significant, special, and capable? Have you created the person you have become? Or has God? Whose image are you made in? Your own? Or God's? Are you self-made, self-reliant, and self-disciplined? Or self-deprecating, self-loathing, and self-doubting? What does your "self" do for you? Would others say you have become your best self? 

    What does it mean to be one made in God's image? Genesis 1:26-27 (ESV) explains it this way, "Then God said, 'Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.' So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he create him; male and female he created them." It means we are not self-made, but God-made. 

    What keeps us from becoming God-like? In 2 Corinthians 4:3-4 (ESV) one culprit is identified, "And even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing. In their case the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God." We can't become God-like if we are following the ways of the world, the flesh, and/or the devil. If we choose to knowingly live in sin, soon we won't be able to differentiate between good and evil or light and darkness, everything will become gray and neutral. 

    What can we do to become God-like? As believers in Jesus Christ, we are called to become our new selves, leaving our old selves and old habits and behaviors behind us. Ephesians 4:24 (ESV) describes it this way, "...put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness." If you find it difficult to remain righteous and holy, take heart, Jesus Christ stepped in on your behalf and mine, "But now apart from the law the righteousness of God has been made known, to which the Law and the Prophets testify. This righteousness is given through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. There is no difference between Jew and Gentile, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and all are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus" (Romans 3:21-24 NIV). 

    So it's not what that makes you significant, but who. And John 1:12-14 (NIV) tells you who that who is, "But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God, who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God. And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth." Just as you might resemble your earthly father, you also resemble your Heavenly Father. The more you are around someone the more you take on their characteristics. The more time we spend in God's Word, pray, and application of scriptures, the more we will know God and take on God's characteristics.

    Fortunately, God the Father knew we couldn't become righteous or holy enough by ourselves to be considered God-like, so He sent His Only Son to be a living sacrifice for us. We can't be self-controlled, self-disciplined, or self-motivated enough to be perfect, sinless beings. But we can rely on, call on, and lean on the One who created us and knows us and loves us enough to make a way for us to one day spend eternity with Him in our new glorified bodies.