Good morning and welcome back to My Mornings with Jesus and Joe. I’m Lori.

And I’m Joe. And we are gonna talk today about something that is near and dear to our hearts. And that is being made in the image of God. I think that’s just a very important thing to realize. Yeah. To understand. Yeah.

But before we get into that, Joe, what’s been up with you? Been to a couple camps a camp and a school with the men’s stuff. And the camp went really well. And then men got some healing and it got to go deeper with God. And then the school was with John Eldridge up in Colorado, and what a blessing that was to go a little deeper and learn a little more.

Oh, good deal. One thing we’ve been wanting to do is when we start these out we have, and we didn’t come up with this, we got this from somewhere else. I don’t know where, but we’ve had it for years and it’s something that Joe and I have that we say this prayer before we sit down to study. The Bible because it just really focuses your mind, clears your thoughts and gets you in present in the Word.

And we thought why not start the podcast sharing that? So Joe?

God, give me wisdom, knowledge, and understanding. God, let any knowledge I gain serve to help me love you and others more. Not puff me up. God, help me to see something new about you.

I’ve never seen before God. Correct. Any lies I believe about you or anything I misunderstand, God direct my steps according to your word. And that’s a great way to start. Yeah. It’s be surprised how well that works when you’re sitting down to study the Bible and really needing to shut the world out and get plugged in.

Yeah. All right, so let’s talk about what it means to be made in the image of God. All right. And the word we hear often when we talk about being made in the image of God is a mago day. And it’s just pretty neat when you think about it. And we need to know this. We need to remember this. It’s not bad to be reminded of it every now and then at the importance of it being made in the image of God.

We’re all unique. That’s one of the features for sure that God does, that He makes us all so unique.

And he sets us apart from like plants and animals and all those different things because we are made in his image and we do like he does and we reflect him. None of those other things that are created do that except us as humans. And there’s a verse that I really like. When I think about Imago Day and it’s Genesis 1 27, it says, so God created man in his own image, the image of God.

He created him, male and female. He created them. And that’s just a powerful reminder of how he created us and whose image we bear.

And the second one. So another characteristic, is the image. God means that all human beings have worth and dignity. When we’re, sometimes people think we’re not worthy when we’ve done something or sinned or whatever, but in God’s. Economy, we are worthy. And Psalm 1 39 14 is another way to remember this.

It says, I praise you for, I’m fearfully and wonderfully made wonderful of your works. My soul knows it very well, and that’s a great verse. And so every human being is made in God’s image. And we are special. We are worthy. And. We are, his reflection, the words fearfully and wonderfully made, always used to trip me up.

’cause I was like, what does it mean to be fearfully made? And I think what it’s he’s saying is, we were made with great care. When you are crafting something and you are working with it. Fearfully means that you are very attentive to the details and to taking care of it, handling it with care, and making it just right.

If you’ve ever baked a cake, sometimes we get fearfully made cakes. ’cause you don’t want it to fall, you want it to turn out. And so you pay such attention to the details of baking that cake. So sometimes our cakes are fearfully made. But I think if you wanna grasp how fearfully and wonderfully made you are as a person, just think of the things in the world around you that completely wow you and astound you.

A sunrise, the ocean, the mountains an eagle, whatever it is. And you are even more fearfully and wonderfully made than that. More wonderful than that. That’s so true. That’s a good point. So another characteristic is just being, we can see what it means to be fully human proper understanding of the image of God, and we live out of the deepest identity of walking in how God made us.

One Peter four, two is a good verse to consider here. It says so as to live. For the rest of the time in the flesh, no longer human passions, but for the will of God. And it just reminds us that he made us in his image and we’re to walk in his will and his way and walk in peace and joy and all the things that come with that.

And it’s not hard to walk in his will. I think people think it is sometimes, but he created you and when you are walking in his will in the will of the one who created you, you just naturally feel the peace and joy that comes with that. You’re not struggling against the world. It’s not a constant battle to be who you are.

Exactly. Yeah, so it’s not a battle and it’s once you’ve submitted your life to Christ, it makes that so special. And like Lori said, it’s natural ’cause that’s the wheel you wanna walk in. You don’t wanna walk in your own will. That’s for sure. So another characteristic is the doctrine of the image of God reminds us that the world belongs to God.

So when you think about, there’s a verse in Psalm Psalm 50 verse 10, for every beast of the forest is mine and the cattle on a thousand hills, it is all his. He created it all. He created us all. And it’s pretty neat to think that. All these other things. He’s spoken to existence, but he didn’t do that with us as humans.

We are his prized possession. You could say that we are, he gathered soil and dirt and breathed life into it. And that’s how man was formed. Like everything else was spoken into existence. But man, God had his hands on him. Yes. Foreman and shaping him. I love the verse. And I can’t remember where it is right now, but you need knit me together in my mother’s womb.

And if you’ve ever knitted, you know how that works. The yarn itself runs through your fingers. So it’s like every fiber of our being ran through God’s fingers Yes. As he knit us together. It’s in Psalm 1 39, but I can’t remember what verse, but that’s so special when you think about that and something that really hits me when I think of that and the way he created, man, he didn’t just breathe us and or speak us into existence.

We were face to face with our creator as soon as that happened. So it wasn’t like where you just. Spoke stars into existence. He spoke animals into existence. So we are very special in his heart.

So another characteristic is the image of God means that we belong to God. So it’s kinda like sometimes we talk about. And to really understand our identity properly, we need to know who we are and whose we are. And that’s special as well. And I’ve got a couple verses that are good with this as well.

One Corinthians six 20 says, for you are bought with a price, so glorify God in your body. And that just reminds us, he created us for his purpose, for his will. And we need to take care of the temple, which we are now. The new temple. I heard it said one time that there’s only two two entities that gets get to give a person a name.

One is the one who created it and the other is the one who bought it. And so God created us and we were bought with the blood of Christ. Yes. So only. Only God gets to tell us who we are. Yeah. Not the world, not what’s popular in culture. Yes. Not what we feel. Yes. But what God says in his word, that is who we are.

Yeah. And another verse that I like that goes with this is Romans 14, eight says, for if we live to the Lord. And if we die to the Lord. So then whether we live or whether we die, we are the Lord’s. So it’s just a, another great reminder from Paul in both of those instances, those verses of reminding us who we are and whose we are.

So there’s one more talking about the image. God teaches us how to truly worship. There’s too many people that worship. Other idols In the Old Testament, there was a lot of ’em worshiping engraving images, and so they. Weren’t worshiping the God that create them. They’re worshiping things that were created, but they weren’t wash worshiping the creator.

And John 4 24 is a verse that. Goes with this as well. God is spirit and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth. And then there’s another verse I looked up in Exodus 34 14 says, for you shall worship no other God. For the Lord whose name is jealous, is a jealous God. And he’s not sitting around jealous and pouting.

He’s just jealous for us. ’cause he created us for. Walking in his will and worshiping him and not all this other false stuff and idols, sometimes in a work environment you do something incredible and someone else steals the credit for it. They get the credit for it. And you know how you feel in that moment.

Okay? That’s how we make God feel when we give his worship the worship that is due him to some other idol. And the thing about worship is. We tend to think immediately of praise music at the church, but we worship God all day long with every decision we make, with every choice, with every breath, with every thought we have.

We are worshiping God and that’s what he wants. He doesn’t want us to just flip it on. When we go to church on Sunday morning, sing a few songs. We’re to live in a state of worship. Yes, and that’s a lot of people get that. In their mind that worship is only the praise and singing part of it. But boy, there’s so many parts of worship and so that’s good to remember and good to consider when we’re walking with God.

So being made in the Imago Day. The image of God basically means that as human beings, we are unique among among all of God’s creation, all his creatures. That we have an inherent worth and dignity because we are made in his image. We get a better understanding of what it means to be fully human when we understand that we’re made in the image of God.

Everything in the world belongs to God.

Yes. And

when you recognize the image of God in us, it means that we too belong to God and the image of God. It knowing that you’re made in that image of God prompts you, motivates you to. Truly worship him. Yes. Is that what you’re saying? That’s what I’m saying. That’s a good summary right there. All right.

What you got? Anything else you wanna add? I think that summarizes it. It’s just the mago day is important, it’s special, and just knowing who we are and whose we are is something that we should be thankful for and praise God for every day. All right. Tell us the most important verse that we can take away today.

Again, yeah, this is personal opinion, of course, but I’d say Genesis 1 27 again. God created man in his own image, in the image of God created, he created him, male and female. He created them. We are definitely created in his own image. That’s pretty amazing. It is praiseworthy for sure. This isn’t the end, but it’s the end for now.

See you next time on another My Mornings with Jesus and Joe.