Let’s begin by tapping into our imagination.  We are going to explore a word hidden in the word.  We are going to look at the word IMAGE that is hidden in the word IMAGINE.   Eventually I will get more specific as we ponder the image of Christ and what it means to be Christ-like or take on the image of Christ.  But to get there we need to let go of any pre-conceived notions of what is about to be said, of what is about to take place and allow the creativity of our hearts and minds do some imagining.  So, let’s begin by taking a fresh look at where it all started (at least as far as we are concerned) at the Creation event.

Please indulge me by reading the Biblical account below and allow the images of creation to form in your mind:

1 In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. 2 Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters. 3 And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. 4 God saw that the light was good, and he separated the light from the darkness. 5 God called the light “day,” and the darkness he called “night.” And there was evening, and there was morning—the first day. 6 And God said, “Let there be a vault between the waters to separate water from water.” 7 So God made the vault and separated the water under the vault from the water above it. And it was so. 8 God called the vault “sky.” And there was evening, and there was morning—the second day. 9 And God said, “Let the water under the sky be gathered to one place, and let dry ground appear.” And it was so. 10 God called the dry ground “land,” and the gathered waters he called “seas.” And God saw that it was good. 11 Then God said, “Let the land produce vegetation: seed-bearing plants and trees on the land that bear fruit with seed in it, according to their various kinds.” And it was so. 12 The land produced vegetation: plants bearing seed according to their kinds and trees bearing fruit with seed in it according to their kinds. And God saw that it was good. 13 And there was evening, and there was morning—the third day. 14 And God said, “Let there be lights in the vault of the sky to separate the day from the night, and let them serve as signs to mark sacred times, and days and years, 15 and let them be lights in the vault of the sky to give light on the earth.” And it was so. 16 God made two great lights—the greater light to govern the day and the lesser light to govern the night. He also made the stars. 17 God set them in the vault of the sky to give light on the earth, 18 to govern the day and the night, and to separate light from darkness. And God saw that it was good. 19 And there was evening, and there was morning—the fourth day. 20 And God said, “Let the water teem with living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth across the vault of the sky.” 21 So God created the great creatures of the sea and every living thing with which the water teems and that moves about in it, according to their kinds, and every winged bird according to its kind. And God saw that it was good. 22 God blessed them and said, “Be fruitful and increase in number and fill the water in the seas, and let the birds increase on the earth.” 23 And there was evening, and there was morning—the fifth day. 24 And God said, “Let the land produce living creatures according to their kinds: the livestock, the creatures that move along the ground, and the wild animals, each according to its kind.” And it was so. 25 God made the wild animals according to their kinds, the livestock according to their kinds, and all the creatures that move along the ground according to their kinds. And God saw that it was good. 26 Then God said, “Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.” 27 So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them. 28 God blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky and over every living creature that moves on the ground.” 29 Then God said, “I give you every seed-bearing plant on the face of the whole earth and every tree that has fruit with seed in it. They will be yours for food. 30 And to all the beasts of the earth and all the birds in the sky and all the creatures that move along the ground—everything that has the breath of life in it—I give every green plant for food.” And it was so. 31 God saw all that he had made, and it was very good. And there was evening, and there was morning—the sixth day.

Genesis 1: 1-31 NIV

Imagine the power of Creation

There is splendor in His workmanship.  Louie Giglio has an entire teaching series on the universe as God’s creation.  I encourage you to look it up and enjoy.  Creation wasn’t without purpose.  “Let the land produce …” the land was given purpose.  “Let the water produce …” the water was given purpose.  “Let there be lights … to give light on the earth” the light was given purpose.  “Let us make mankind in our image … so that they may rule…” mankind was given purpose.

Imagine our purpose

What does it mean to “be fruitful and increase … rule over … every living creature”?  What have we allowed culture to form for us in terms of our purpose?  Be born; grow up and get an education.  Maybe get married and have kids; if so, raise them to be good citizens.  Acquire as much as you can to enjoy and/or leave behind.  Die well, so good can be spoken of you.  Is that our dream?  The American dream?

Let’s think about this: The God who is Creator (all that we’ve imagined His Creation act to be) is going to give His ultimate creation, His masterpiece, mankind, such a mediocre purpose?  Such a limited and powerless purpose?  There is no power in being born – we didn’t do it on our own and we are in a state of ultimate vulnerability.  There is no power in getting an education (don’t misunderstand me here) – it only reminds us how much we don’t know.  There is no power in having kids – they drain our wallets.  There is no power in acquiring things – they don’t satisfy, they are temporary, and they won’t go with us into eternity.

According to M. Robert Mulholland, Jr. in his book Invitation to a Journey, we live in an objectifying culture, which “is one that views the world primarily as an object “out there” to be grasped and controlled for our own purposes.  We are the subjects whose role in life is to appropriate the objects in our world and use them to impose our will upon the world.”  Parker Palmer, a Quaker and author, put it this way, “We are well-educated people who have been schooled in a way of knowing that treats the world as an object to be dissected and manipulated, a way of knowing that gives us power over the world … [We] have used [our] knowledge to rearrange the world to satisfy [our] drive for power, distorting and deranging life rather than living it for the gift it is.”

So, what am I saying?  Am I telling you not to get an education, have kids, or acquire possessions?  No, not as such.  These things, even having kids, are the tools of God’s workmanship placed in our hands, to be good stewards over, but to be used for a greater purpose beyond ourselves and our wants and desires.  When we yearn for purpose in our lives, we tend to look away from God and settle for the choices the world presents us.  In his book Renovation of the Heart, Dallas Willard says, “Choice is where sin dwells.”

Imagine who we could be

The journey to discovering our purpose is in obedience, but obedience in the form of God’s transforming creation taking place within us if we would just let Him.  Mulholland said, “In the final analysis there is nothing we can do to transform ourselves into persons who love and serve as Jesus did except make ourselves available for God to do that work of transforming grace in our lives.”  On our own, we can’t do it.  We see salvation as a one-time event and then aspire to figure out how to live this life of ours on our own.  There are many reasons for this, more than can be mentioned here.  Whether it’s because we have some notion that that is God’s intention, to save us and leave the rest to us.  Maybe there was some event in your life, a tragedy perhaps, that shaped a distorted view of God’s love for you.  Maybe it’s simply a lack of knowledge or revelation. 

Salvation isn’t supposed to be a one-time event.  Salvation and sanctification are a process.  The day you ask Jesus Christ into your heart, the “day” of your salvation experience (if it’s authentic) is the first day of your new eternity.  Your eternity looked pretty gloom the day before, but from that day forward your eternity changed.  And the process of change, or rather, the process of creation continues to take place in your life every day after until the Lord takes you to your ultimate home.  The Bible says in 2 Corinthians 5: 17, “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come:  The old has gone, the new is here!”  Instead of holding onto a memory of a day where you had a great spiritual experience, we should be living every day with the work of creation manifesting within us.  Instead of trying to earn our salvation for the rest of our lives we should be enjoying the journey of life, true life, not this world’s version of life (it’s a distraction and the ultimate deception) but true life that God is working in us and displaying before us.

Here is something I learned in a theology class.  We live in a culture that has reversed the biblical order of being and doing.  We have to get the order right.  The problem with our spiritual formation is that we have a strong tendency to think that if only we do the right things, we will be the right kind of Christian, as though our doing would bring about our being.  We must realize that God, not we ourselves, is the source of the transformation of our being into wholeness in the image of Christ.  Our relationship with God, not our doing, is the source of our being.  So, imagine for a moment what that might look like.  From this moment on, making the shift from doing “works” in hopes of one day being enough to please God to be the created work of God whose continued transformation manifests through our ability to live life as God intended.  The very same God who created the universe and all that we can see.  Imagine that power of creation at work within us, and what that could look like in our lives.

All the issues and problems of the world may seem big to us with our involvement but become very small when we allow God to be involved.  If we go back to 2 Corinthians, in verses 20-21 it says, “We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us.  We implore you on Christ’s behalf: Be reconciled to God.  God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.”  What this means is that if we do this, if we make the shift I am talking about, then we will begin to look more like Christ, the image of Christ.  We will be set apart.  The Bible says that we will know them by their fruit.  That verse becomes a reality for us.  We become ambassadors by default of the transforming work taking place in us.  We will look different, sound different, view the world with new vision and understanding.  We will view our own circumstances differently.

My question to you is this:  Where is your intent to be Christ-like evident in your life?  What is different about your life?  How are you set apart?  If the only thing that is different about your life than those of your unbelieving or unchurched friends is the fact that you show up at church on Sunday mornings, then you are not set apart.  You are not allowing new creation work manifest in your life.

Jeremiah says, “the heart is more deceitful than all else and is desperately sick: who can understand it?”  There are a couple of things we can do.  First, stop self-worship.  It is not, nor has it ever been, nor will it ever be, about you.  Stop trying to attain and obtain for you.  Stop trying to figure it out on your own as if you have some hidden power within you.  You don’t, because you didn’t create yourself.  God created you and He has the power to give you all that you need.

Second, remove the filter that lies.  Our selfish wants, desires and ambitions must go.  We allow the lie to be the filter in our minds.  It’s like the filters that are so popular with social media platforms now.  I guess it is some form a being creatively fun.  But a lot of these filters are used to hide or “correct” blemishes so not to be seen.  That’s what a filter does.  We need to remove the filter that lies.  It’s the lie that we have to earn our salvation daily.  When Luke 9:23 says we must take up our cross daily, it is not meant to say we figure it out on our own.  This world is going to bring hardship.  We must allow God’s continued creation work within us bear those burdens.

Let me show you something.  Let me show you how wonderfully creative our God is.  We started out imagining about the Creation event.  Genesis began with “in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.”  If we go to the Gospel of John, look what we see.  John 1 starts out like this: “In the beginning was the Word (Jesus), and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.  He was with God in the beginning.  Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made.  In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind.  The life shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.”

If we go to verse 9: “The true light that gives light to everyone was coming into the world.  He was in the world, and though the world was made through him, the world did not recognize him.  He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him.  Yet to all who did receive him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God – children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband’s will, but born of God.”

From the very beginning, when God was busy creating the universe, creating the world, creating mankind, etc., we also see that in the beginning Jesus was present and God was thinking about you and me.  His redemptive plan was already purposed when the power of Creation manifested in the beginning.  Every person reading this are at very different places in the journey.  Some haven’t even started on their journey.  Some thought they were on the journey but now realize they left the journey way back on the day of their spiritual experience with God.  Some have come so far on the journey, but in some way, shape or form, gave up and are now stuck somewhere on the path.  The good news is that wherever you are in the journey, God’s in the creation business and is ready to start something new in you.  Just imagine what that might be.