Genesis 1:27 “And God created man in His image; in the image of God He created him. He created them male and female.”
1 Cor 15:47-49 The first man was out of earth, earthy; the second Man was the Lord from Heaven. 48 Such the earthy man, such also the earthy ones. And such the heavenly Man, such also the heavenly ones. 49 And according as we bore the image of the earthy man, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly Man.
Yeshua (Jesus) is described as the “image of the invisible God” [Colossians 1:15-17; Hebrews 1:3], that is, God, manifesting Himself in a visible, tangible form, a human form in whom dwells all the fullness of Deity [Colossians 1:19; Colossians 2:9; 1 Timothy 3:16], equal with God before Creation [John 1:1-5; John 1:14], but choosing to be emptied of His glory for the purpose of incarnating as a flesh and blood human being on Earth; [Philippians 2:6-8].
The Hebrew word for image is ‘tzelem,’ within which is another Hebrew word, ‘tzel,’ meaning shadow…kind of an image within an image. It seems that God’s idea was for humans to be a shadow or a reflection of Himself from the beginning. [Genesis 1:26]
However, the first Adam allowed sin and death to enter this world, thus fracturing mankind’s relationship with God.
Now, through the second Adam, Yeshua [1 Cor. 15:21-28], this relationship can be restored. He came to address the problem of death and repair the relationship broken by sin, which had distanced humanity from its Creator. Now, through the second Adam, we have the opportunity to bear the “image of the heavenly” [1 Cor 15:45-49], which was God’s original intention.
What does this look like, the restoration of the image of God in spiritually regenerated human beings now, since God’s intention from the beginning was for mankind to reflect His holy image and to be an expression of His nature? Now, we are presented with the “opportunity of a lifetime” to touch a world in need! The world needs to see the reflection of His love, joy, and peace radiating in our lives — when we do so, we are fulfilling His original intention for us — to truly image Him!
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[worthy_plugins_devotion_single_body]Today's word is not Hebrew or Greek, it's Inuit! The word is issumagijoujunnainermik. When missionaries first shared the gospel with the Inuit tribes in Alaska, they couldn't find any word in the Inuit language for forgiveness. So, they took a number of Inuit words and joined them to form a new word -- Issu-magi-jou-jun-nai-ner-mik -- and it became the Inuit word for forgiveness. The individual words are "Not-being-able-to-think-about-it-anymore."
True story! In 1940, a large and wonderful Christian family, the Rudolph's, announced the birth of their 20th baby! Though the baby was not expected to live, having been born prematurely and with polio, she defied all odds. She did live, but by the time she was four she had suffered polio, pneumonia and scarlet fever. This little girl was badly crippled with hardly any use of her left leg. While her brothers and sisters enjoyed running and playing outside, she was left confined to braces.
Near Eilat, in Southern Israel, there is a life-size replica of the tabernacle in the Negev desert, a couple hours from where we live. One particular year, as we visited and entered the Holy of Holies, the guide shared something I never heard before.
My wife used to teach Israeli dance workshops all over the world. And over the years, she has acquired a few interesting and rather funny stories of people, including herself, tripping and stumbling over each other during a class.
We've been in full-time ministry just over 20 years now, and boy, have we had our share of trials and tribulations!
Sometimes when we are in the midst of trials we start to wonder -- Lord, will it ever end? In case you haven't noticed, it doesn't. But the good news is that with each faith-testing experience, our ability to deal with these trials and tribulations becomes better and our faith grows stronger!
There was a man who had four sons. He wanted them to learn to not judge things too quickly, so he sent them each on a quest to go and look at a pear tree that was a great distance away. He sent his first son in the winter, his second in the spring, his third in summer and his youngest in the fall. When they had all gone and come back, he called them together to describe what they had seen.
A group of scientists and botanists were exploring remote regions of the Alps in search of new species of flowers. One day they noticed through binoculars a flower of such rarity and beauty that its value to science was incalculable. But it lay deep in a ravine with cliffs on both sides. To get the flower someone had to be lowered over the cliff on a rope.