Reflecting God
A powerful illustration of our relationship with the Creator and His Son
It has taken a long time for us to understand what God’s plan for mankind really is. We have gone through many stages in our understanding including: Jesus died for us so we could escape hell, to Jesus died for us so we could go to Heaven. But God’s original purpose for man is clear. We were created to be the image of God.
When we were first formed, God made it clear what His intentions were for us as seen in what He said when He created us. “Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.” So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. God blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air and over every living creature that moves on the ground.””[1]
We were designed to be the likeness of God. Today we would say we were to be the image… mirror… reflection… of God. Mankind was created to reflect the attributes and characteristics of God. We were intended to be a physical manifestation of an invisible God. God breathed His own life into mankind to enable us to do this.
It is important to realize that God’s will for mankind has never changed. Whatever God gave to Adam and told man to do in the Garden of Eden, is still what God wants today. They had dominion and that is God’s will for us today. They were the image of God, and God wants us to be that today.
Mankind very quickly failed in reflecting God, as seen in the failure in the Garden of Eden.[2] They were tempted to be like God, but didn’t realize that in the important ways, they already were like Him. They already were reflecting Him. The one thing they wanted, they already had. The effects of that failure is still felt today among people, and there is nothing we can do to change it.
That is the bad news, now here is the good news. Jesus Christ came to earth in the image of God.[3] The very thing we were supposed to be, He is. But that is only half of the good news. We are being changed into the image of Jesus. “And we, who with unveiled faces all reflect the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into his likeness with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit.”[4]
This is illustrated simply by our own solar system. The sun gives the earth light at day and the moon at night. But under closer examination, the moon does not give light, it is still the sun. Actually, there is no moonlight. It is sunlight reflecting off the moon. In fact, the moon is reflecting the light of the sun whether we see it or not.
It is the most natural thing for the moon to do. You can go outside at night, and you will never hear the moon grunting, “I think I can; I think I can; I think I can.” It reflects automatically. The only time it does not reflect is during a lunar eclipse, when the moon passes in the shadow of the earth.
This is a powerful example of our purpose and relationship with God and His Son. We were created in the image of God. We were designed to reflect Him. It is the most natural thing for us to do on our life journey. In fact, as long as we stay in the presence of the Son, we will reflect Him. The only time, we don’t reflect, is when we pass into the shadow of the world. When the world gets in between us and God, we stop reflecting the Son just like when the moon gets into the shadow of the earth it stops reflecting the sun.
This issue of Business Life explores that very concept. The goal of our life path is not to head toward self-actualization or self-fulfillment or even Freedom 65. The goal of our life development is still the same goal as the original — to reflect Christ. Our goal is to become spiritually mature. May this magazine and this ministry help you get there.
Footnotes
- Genesis 1:26-28 NIV
- Genesis 3:1-7
- Colossians 1:15
- 2 Corinthians 3:18 NIV
First appeared in Spring 2007 Business LIFE
