God created man to bear His image and likeness and rule the world with Him as His perfect sons.
When man fell from grace, we maintained His image but lost His likeness. The fullness of God’s plan was to send His Son Jesus to bear witness to His likeness to a broken world that it might be redeemed through His goodness. As His Spirit takes hold of us, we are being made perfect through Christ and crowned as sons in inheritance, kings and priests in position, but still fully embedded in a broken worldly reality. We daily are transformed more and more into the glory and likeness of God, which will not be perfected until the end of time. We follow after the Way of Jesus, representing the power and authority of God to a broken world in the only way this love-starved world can receive – by the giving of ourselves for them.
Questions for Review
- What stands out to you when you read this presentation?
- For what purpose did God create Man?
- In what ways did God make you in the image and likeness of God?
Questions for Meditation and Application
- Why did God create you?
- What does it mean to you that you are created in God’s own image?
- How do you develop your spiritual life into the likeness of God?
- What does it mean to you to be a “son of God”?
- What does this reveal to you about what purpose God specifically made you for?
This post is _Part 10_, the last in a series on God’s image and likeness. To use this as a growth tool to better understand your own calling, you might start by reading the explanation of this series and then read Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7, Part 8 and Part 9.
Photo credit: honey 77