Miracle of God's Image

They are questions people often ask. “If God is real and powerful, why didn’t He create us so that we couldn’t do bad things?” Or, “Why does God let wars kill innocent people?” Or, “Why does God let little children suffer and die?”

But wait! It’s because God is real, powerful and loving that man is capable of doing so many beautiful things and, sadly, so much evil. Incredible as it is, God made you and me like Him—in His image—with a free will to make choices. “And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion…over all the earth. So God created man in His own image…” (Genesis 1:26-27).

Now the human body is amazing enough! (We’ll look at that later.) But it’s what we can’t see—including the invisible Creator Himself—that is more astonishing. Made in His image—so we can even conceive someone like God. Made in His image—so we can form opinions of Him. We can accept Him or reject Him. Love Him or despise Him. Choose His path of life or that of God’s opponent, Satan.

Some say “God took a great risk in creating man in His image with a free will.”  I disagree. That statement sounds like God wasn’t sure what would happen—what man might choose. But God, being omniscient, did know. And He knew that those who choose His purpose for their lives will end up ruling with Him forever with the Son of God, Jesus Christ. (That’s why robots or zombies would never do).

God knew that sin would turn the world’s “wise men” into fools who would say “There is no purpose to life.” (But if there was no purpose, one could not know there is no purpose.) God knew that those who want no interference with their sin would teach young people in colleges and universities that “There is no God”. In so doing, our atheist friends would be trying to prove the impossible—a universal negative. (They couldn’t even prove me wrong if I said there was a little green man running through the universe. They would first have to search out every star and planet—at the same time. Or else I would say, “While you were going to that star, he went to another”).

My young warrior friends, you have been made for eternity. That’s why you can even think such a thought—ETERNITY.  “God has planted eternity in men’s heart and mind (a divinely implanted sense of a purpose working through the ages which nothing under the sun, but only God, can satisfy…)”  (Ecclesiastes 3:11 Amplified Bible).

And talk about having a “purpose”! Because you bear His image, God’s purpose for you is as eternal as He is. First, you and I “are the called according to His purpose”. (Romans 8:28)  Here it is again:  “God, who has saved us, and called us with a holy calling, not according to our works, but according to His own PURPOSE and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus before the world began.” (2 Timothy 1:9).

There you have it, young warrior. You were in the Father’s heart before He created the world. You were not made for the world. The world was made for you. His image! That’s you! To know Christ and love Him. To have God’s Holy Spirit use God’s Holy Word day by day to mold you into the likeness of His own Son, Jesus. To one day see Him face to face and reign with Him in something called “FOREVER”.

So never be intimidated by atheistic agnostics, evolutionists, or whatever name they claim. They are the blind leading the blind. Their “faith,” that denies the “God-connection”, is looking more stupid with every new discovery in space and on earth. Their gloomy “no purpose to life” makes rational people turn away. Their attempt to turn off their God-given conscience by insisting that “there are no absolutes” can be answered by a child who asks, “Are you absolutely sure?!”

The great thing is that those who insist on evidence “up close” can have it. That evidence is you. And me. Let’s ask Jesus to make Himself so real in our lives that our testimonies in actions and word will be evidence to thirsting hearts that God is real and awesome!

"Be ye followers of me, even as I also am of Christ" (I Corinthians 11:1)
The ST. PAUL SCHOOL, with Frank Eiklor, Eileen Young and Cecilia Contreras