Created in God's image
“Life is a gift from God created in His own image.” – John MacArthur
A Moral Being
Morals are a sense of concern for what is right and what is wrong, for what is good and what is bad. It is basically a standard of behavior or beliefs about what is and what isn’t acceptable. God has put a conscience in each human He has created. This inherent tendency that is within every human conscience is even in unbelievers, too, and that by sinning, “they show that the work of the law is written on their hearts, while their conscience also bears witness, and their conflicting thoughts accuse or even excuse them on that day when, according to my gospel, God judges the secrets of men by Christ Jesus” (Rom. 2:15-16). It is by “their unrighteousness [that they] suppress the truth” (Rom. 1:18). Everyone knows right from wrong, and that is part of our being made into God’s own image
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Being Fruitful and Multiplying
God is the Author of Life (Acts 3:15), and as such, He told Adam and Eve to be fruitful and multiply and to fill the earth (Gen. 1:28) and commanded the created things, both plant and animal, to do likewise (Gen. 1:11-12, 22). He later repeated this command to Noah after the flood when sinful mankind had been destroyed: “Be fruitful and increase in number and fill the earth” (Gen. 9:1). He later told Israel, “Be fruitful and multiply. You will become a great nation, even many nations. Kings will be among your descendants” (Gen. 35:11). Life is a gift of God, just as eternal life is (Rom. 6:23), and God gave mankind the capacity to bear life after their own kind and to be an image-bearer of God in this way.
By Reigning Over the Creation
In Genesis One, God told mankind to “be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth” (Gen. 1:28). Where man rules, God overrules, and where man reigns, God reigns supreme, but this is also part of being created in God’s own image–that He is ruling.
Becoming the Image of Christ
The most important way that we are made in the image of God is that we are being made into the image of the Son of God, as Paul wrote that we have “put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge in the image of its Creator” (Col 3:10), “and to put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness” (Eph. 4:24). Indeed, mankind was created in “the image and glory of God” (1 Cor. 11:7) and during the creation of mankind, “God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness” (Gen. 1:26), which includes both male and female (Gen. 1:27). For the believer, this “makeover” is being made into a “Christ-likeness” and not talking about the shape or physical image of God because God is Spirit (John 4:24), so God means the image of God is internal and not external.
Conclusion
As John MacArthur said, life is a gift from God created in His own image. Today we are being made into the image of Christ. Someday we will reign with Christ as kings and priests (Rev. 5:10) and reign over more than the creation but reign over the kingdom of God, which is to begin with the coming down from heaven of the New Jerusalem (Rev. 22), and for that, I cannot wait.
by Jack Wellman
Instruction, and advice, and commands will profit little, unless they are backed up by the pattern of your own life. Your children will never believe you are in earnest, and really wish them to obey you, so long as your actions contradict your counsel. Archbishop Tillotson made a wise remark when he said, "To give children good instruction, and a bad example, is but beckoning to them with the head to show them the way to heaven, while we take them by the hand and lead them in the way to hell." We little know the force and power of example. No one of us can live to himself in this world; we are always influencing those around us, in one way or another, either for good or for evil, either for God or for sin. — They see our ways, they mark our conduct, they observe our behavior, and what they see us practice, that they may fairly suppose we think right. And never, I believe, does example tell so powerfully as it does in the case of parents and children. Fathers and mothers, do not forget that children learn more by the eye than they do by the ear. No school will make such deep marks on character as home. The best of schoolmasters will not imprint on their minds as much as they will pick up at your fireside. Imitation is a far stronger principle with children than memory. What they see has a much stronger effect on their minds than what they are told. Take care, then, what you do before a child. It is a true proverb, "Who sins before a child, sins double." Strive rather to be a living epistle of Christ, such as your families can read, and that plainly too. Be an example of reverence for the Word of God, reverence in prayer, reverence for means of grace, reverence for the Lord's day. — Be an example in words, in temper, in diligence, in temperance, in faith, in charity, in kindness, in humility. Think not your children will practice what they do not see you do. You are their model picture, and they will copy what you are. Your reasoning and your lecturing, your wise commands and your good advice; all this they may not understand, but they can understand your life. Children are very quick observers; very quick in seeing through some kinds of hypocrisy, very quick in finding out what you really think and feel, very quick in adopting all your ways and opinions. You will often find as the father is, so is the son. Remember the word that the conqueror Caesar always used to his soldiers in a battle. He did not say "Go forward," but "Come." So it must be with you in training your children. They will seldom learn habits which they see you despise, or walk in paths in which you do not walk yourself. He that preaches to his children what he does not practice, is working a work that never goes forward. It is like the fabled web of Penelope of old, who wove all day, and unwove all night. Even so, the parent who tries to train without setting a good example is building with one hand, and pulling down with the other.
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