Dear Ones:
Throughout history, and even up to our present time, folks are looking for their identity. The thought is that in finding out the identity, this will ensue meaning and purpose. One will be more secure “in one’s skin,” because the identity in one sense is the anchor of the soul. But to find that identity, it is not enough to go back a generation or two in our family tree. If the answer to our existence, and our identity in that existence is to be found, it is imperative that we go back to the beginning, the very beginning. For there we shall find out what the Creator gave us as an identity and purpose.
In Genesis 1:27, we read: “So God created man in His image, in the image of God created He him, male and female created them.” Immediately we discover that our “identity” began by the design, purpose, and intervention of God. Our identity is Divine in its origin and its effect. Secondly, we discover that the design is specific, and caters to the very nature, disposition, and will of God. “God created man IN HIS IMAGE…” is one of the most extraordinary, powerful statements in Scripture, for in that phrase is revealed what we were created TO BE. Paul brings this before us so very clearly in his letter to the Romans: “For whom He did foreknow, He also did predestinate TO BE CONFORMED TO THE IMAGE OF HIS SON…” (8:29) When Adam and Eve sinned, man, in great measure, ceased to BE in the image of God…for though the “likeness” remained to some extent, yet it was a Life-less shell, hence the words to Nicodemus: “…Ye must be BORN again,” born of the Spirit, to live BY the Spirit. For it will only be as man, born again and living by the faith of Christ, that the Spirit will reveal increasingly the indwelling Life and nature of God in the heart. At that point one will again begin to rise to the measure of the calling, and identity, for which we were created.
So, today…let us grasp what we ARE, created in the image of God, to BE like Him. Is this not what Jesus meant when He said, “Be perfect as your Heavenly Father is perfect?” That which immediately faces us, being on this side Adam’s sin and curse, is that we have but one MEANS, one WAY to become what we are, and that is by the cleansing by the blood of Christ (today, and from all sin…), and the empowering of the Holy Spirit, as we trust wholly in Him. What a magnificent calling, vision, identity, and purpose….God intervened sovereignly in the beginning to create man once. Now He intervenes in our lives, not only to make of us a “new creation” in Christ, but to form Christ in us by the Spirit as we walk by Him. “Changed from glory to glory….” God is determined to do this in us, to enable us to become what we truly ARE. So, let us trust Him for it, believing Him for the full outworking of His purposes and will in our lives.
Love, Dad