Remade in God’s Image
One of the most frustrating experiences in life for me is doing something and then having to do it all over again. It may have been that I was not attentive when doing it the first time and I did something wrong causing me to need to do it over. It may have been that I rushed through it to get it completed without doing a quality job demanding that I do it over and get it right this time! Regardless of the reason, it is very frustrating.
The most frustrating and discouraging would be to have failed as a father to my children only to realize too late that it was my fault that they turned out the way they did because of my inattention or sloppy work as a father. How sad it would be to come to that knowledge too late!
God made man in His own image (Genesis 1:26-28). He and she were the crowning act of the loving, creating God. His desire was to have someone to love! That is why He created! Sure, He also wants to be loved, but it is a quality of God to love.
Adam and Eve, and every person since their time, have fallen short of the loftiness of their own creation (Romans 3:23). Each person has taken on a new nature. It was a conscious decision, at some point, to take on a different nature from the one given to us at creation.
God wants His people to be whole. He desires all people to be saved (II Peter 3:9). He desperately wants to remake each one of them and return them to the pure, innocent state that was theirs from birth.
In His justice, He sent Jesus to be the atoning sacrifice. His was a pure sacrifice. One without blemish and without spot (I Peter 1:19). Through Jesus, God remakes those who desire it into that new creature (Romans 6:1-6) which is nothing more or less than what originally made!
It is the restoration of the right to be in His presence again without the dividing wall of sin! That’s just the way it was in the Garden. We can again be in the presence of God boldly because of Jesus (Hebrews 4:16)!
God closed His written word with that very image. John said, “Now I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away. Also, there was no more sea. Then I, John, saw the holy city, New Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband.” That day and time are coming! Are you ready? Do you look forward to it? As the new year begins, why not allow it to motivate you to be new again!!
