Have you ever wondered what the Trinity—Father, Son and Spirit—were doing in eternity past? Before the galaxies, before the earthworms, before the giraffes, what was the triune God doing? C. S. Lewis would say, “In Christianity, God is not a static thing—not even a person—but a dynamic, pulsating activity, a life, almost a kind of drama. Almost, if you will not think me irreverent, a kind of dance.” In other words, God—the three persons—danced around each other in self-donating, loving relationships. God lacked nothing. Within the Trinity was perfect love, goodness, relationship, and joy. So, why did God make us?
Love Begets
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
love gives
Love has a tendency to give. Boy meets girl, they start a relationship. That relationship begets a marriage.
Families grow and so on. The overflow of the triune’s love gives creation. And, at the culmination of all of creation, sitting at the top above the moon and sun, the good Niagara Falls, the good stegosaurus, was the best of all of God’s creation: humanity. Out of the goodness of the triune relationship, God made humans in his image.
He created male and female to have dominion and to rule over all of creation. We had perfect fellowship with God, and we enjoyed the figs from the trees, patting the lion on the head, and the coolness of the river on our bare feet as we walked through Eden. We also enjoyed each other. Adam and Eve, our first parents, lived without anxiety, despair, jealousy, hatred, and fear. God made the world and everything in it, and it was good.
gospel starts here
When we think about the gospel, we should train our minds to go back to the very beginning. The gospel begins with God, then humanity, then sin. We tend to bypass the first two on a race to get to the bad news. Yet, the gospel is good news. We celebrate that God created out of love, not need. We celebrate that God created out of goodness, not loneliness. We celebrate that God created out of joy, not boredom. And, we celebrate that we bear God’s image. Humanity—though separate from God, since he is creator and we are creation—still maintains the ability to do God-like things: create, love, divest of power, dance, commune with others, and so forth. Humans, in a partnership with God, rule, reign, and seek the good of the world around us. In the fabric of our humanity, God infused us with the ability to do beautiful, redemptive, and meaningful things.
We celebrate that God created out of love, not need. We celebrate that God created out of goodness, not loneliness. We celebrate that God created out of joy, not boredom. And, we celebrate that we bear God’s image.
The next time you think about the gospel or share it with someone, put on your dancing shoes and consider the Trinity orbiting in self-donating loving relationship. The gospel starts with God, and so should we.
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Daily Question
When you consider that God made you from an overflow of love and goodness and made you to be like him, how does this inform your self-image? How do you see yourself imaging God in your life?
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God’s overflow of love and goodness is simply overwhelming to consider. He loves me as I am because He created me! I try to reflect God’s image in my life by being thoughtful and caring to others. I’m not very outspoken so I think I need to work more on verbalizing God’s influence on my life. I need to step out of my comfort zone and share our precious creator with others!
To pause and actually consider that I am made in Gods image takes effort. Society paints such a different picture and plays such a different tune that it can be easy to forget the royalty we are. God is so good and wants nothing more than for his goodness to be glorified through us.
A few weeks ago I started praying this song line: "Be thou my vision". Thinking about it on the foil of me being the image of God created out of nothing less than pure love – what is my vision then? I can’t stop wondering if this vision would (will!) change my life totally! How am I going to speak, to minister, to care to and for others when I deeply and truly understood God’s vision of me first?
For me this points to the core of identity. First starting with complete acceptance and love of the person He created me to be. A major task over life is uncovering that person from the sin and error that hinders (through response to God and His working). And from that knowledge of the love and acceptance, learning to give and create and relate and pass it on. It’s a process but so good and important to have the vision that aligns with God’s perspective. I rarely have had that – this is a good reminder.
The truth that I am made in the image and likeness of God changes everything. I often doubt myself — my abilities and capabilities — allowing the famous words of the enemy to shame me into denial of God’s image…”Did God really say…?” The truth is that God really did say that I am: loved, holy, strong, made for excellence and the list goes on!
Going back to the beginning, starting with God, sets the foundation for our identity. When we start with us we will always fall short.
We are created in His likeness. That tells me that He loved me before I knew Him, wow! Yet while I was a sinner separated from Him, He still lived me enough to place people in my life, from my mom, and step dad to teach me His ways. That understanding that I cannot see heaven nor commune with God, unless I see that sin, born in me has to be cleansed from me. The only way that can happen is to come to His saving grace-salvation, accepting His free gift, because all have sinner and fall short of the glory of God, Romans 3:23, but God who loves us, said in Romans 6:23, the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.
We are beautifully and wonderfully made in Him, as a born-agsin believer that empowers me to see others through God’s lenses, with the Holy Spirit guiding and working, allowing me to share the good news of the Gospel with them. Awesome stuff this Holy Bible, this one true God, Lord of all! I am free from sin and hell because of Jesus! That is empowering love!
I personally have just been convicted by GOD to change in how I image HIM I’ve been a Christian for 37 years and just last summer GOD spoke to me about this! I used to be a very judgemental Christian thinking everyone should meet my standards but GOD showed me HE is compassionate and not as judging as I was being!
We must encourage repentance among believers!! But we can’t judge! We are no better WE ARE NOT GOD! We must think Redemption not condemnation! You can’t elevate anything except God’s Word! So how do I want to image GOD being compassionate, but encouraging repentance of sin!
The fact that God created me in His image should change the way that I view myself. It makes me understand how precious and loved I am in God’s eyes. He rejoices over me with singing because I am the glory of His creation and because His blood redeemed me from my brokenness and restored to me the ability to image Him in my everyday life. It convicts me that everytime I complain about my hair or my eyes or any part of me that I find annoying or don’t like, I’m ultimately complaining against God and INSULTING His beautiful creation. Whenever I hurt or insult others with my words, I am insulting my Maker.
I think there are always ways to improve how I image God, but I think I do a good job of imaging Him when I weep with those who weep and rejoice with those who rejoice. I image Him best whenever I am fully surrendered and obedient to whatever He would have me do, when I am actively listening and willing to obey His voice.
To me the most impactful statement today was the phrase: “The gospel begins with God, and so should we.” So often, I want to start sharing the gospel from the point that sin and death entered the world. But I was reminded today that the gospel begins and ends with God, and I should begin and end with Him when sharing the gospel with others.
I am precious to him who made me. I am loved because he first loved me. Because I am precious to him, I need to do a better job of taking care of HIS daughter, myself! Self-image has been a struggle with me for a long time. In this season of my life I am starting to see more clearly Gods view. I am starting to see that I have acted like a vitctum to my negative self-image. Yikes! What the Gosple does is give me strength to remember that through Jesus, can walk with God through the Holy Spirit, who helps us hear Gods image for us. I am starting to get out of the pit and can imagine Christ walking beside and a little ahead of me to pave the way! It is a good Gosple!
Personally, I believe that when I think of these questions I am angry at myself for trying to tear down His creation. I try to be Christ like so I can be a person someone can come to when they do not know where to go to find Him, but I know I still have work. The thing I am currently working on is to stop being so critical of myself. Love myself and my body, which is very different after having two babies back to back. I need to love you I am and who I am becoming.
Praying with you, Schauna, in this becoming more like Him as you mother your babies through the tiredness of these early years. May your parenting be a wonderful image to those you meet of the way God loves all us His children. Here, I hope, is a link to a song I find very encouraging, and I hope you will too. https://youtu.be/1W5XGyaExlM
Looks as though it hasn’t worked. Look for ‘Press on Mums’ by Colin Buchanan.