I’ve been sitting this morning with the creation story as written in Genesis 1:1 – 2:2. God spoke and creation happened. I love that I serve a creative God. The piece that caught my attention today was verse 1:26 “God spoke: “Let us make human beings in our image, make them reflecting our nature” (The Message). In the past when I have read this verse it seems I always through about “image” as form. The second part of this sentence struck me today as I read “make them reflecting our nature.”
What does it look like to reflect the nature of God? The nature of the triune God: Father, Son, and Spirt. What quality is it we are to reflect? I don’t know about you but I am not omniscient (the older I get the more true this becomes), I’m not omnipresent or any of the other divine qualities of God. The only quality I could come up with, the only image of God that I could hope to reflect is LOVE.
Jesus tells us to love God, love others, and love ourself (Matthew 22:34-40). In 1 John 4 we see that God is love and we are to love one another. Jesus showed His love for us by choosing death on the cross. Love is the image of God woven into each one of us.
Unfortunately, we often choose to dull this reflection of God. We live in an ever fracturing world. The things that divide us are many. We tend to vilify the one who stands across the divide from us so that we can justify treating them less than lovingly. I am a simple man who doesn’t have the answers to some of the systemic divides (racial, socioeconomic, religious, etc) that are tearing our world apart. I know that these are divides that need to be closed.
What I want to encourage us to do is work at the personal level and create what Martin Buber called “I-Thou” relationships with those who stand opposite you. Love God, Love Others, Love Yourself. Blessing.