Song: Goodness Follows

(Verse 1)
You see the farthest part of me
And You still say, "Come to me"
You hear my lonely cries
And You say, "Everything will work out right"
You knew me before I was born
And you're still right here by my side

(Chorus)
You are good, good, good to me
Let me not forget
That you are-yes, you are
Good, good, good to me!
I won't forget-
Yes, you are good!

(Verse 2)
You say, "Come follow me"
And I go my own way
You say, "My thoughts are higher"
And I doubt my Leader
You say, "Have faith my child"
And I give you a mustard seed

(Repeat chorus)

(Bridge)
Everywhere I go, you are there
Everything I do, you still care
What can I do, what can I bring?
All I can do is sing-
I'll sing with my whole life

(Chorus)

In God's Eyes part 1

Genesis

Have you ever wondered what God thinks of you? Have you ever wondered exactly what does God's thoughts consist of when in regards to you as a person, an individual? Are you truly unique, special, great, a "tinkle in His eye?"

I am sure you have pondered these questions and many more just like them because so have I!

Back in the fall I noted that I was going to beginning a study that tackles these very questions. The title of my study was/is called "In God's Eyes." What I have slowly been recovering as I go through each book in chronological order of the Holy Bible are some of those adjectives and pronouns that God calls us.

What I would like you to discover today are the first ten of those words I uncovered while reading in the first book of the Bible-Genesis. 

Our journey begins as you can imagine in the Garden of Eden. Now whether you are a fundamentalist or not and take this story to be literal or not, we must still take the objects from it. In this particular case, our objectives are to see through God's eyes alone.

What I have done while reading this is note both the explicitly and implicitly said words-that is what is directly said and what is implied. But for the sake limiting our possible arguments and confusion, I will only be sharing the explicitly said words.

1. Own image
2. Male and female
3. Very good
4. Dust & breath
5. Blessed
6. Like one of us knowing Good and Evil
7. Have regard
8. corrupt & evil thinkers
9. Have favor
10. violent

I want you to just take a minute and ponder those words. Take a mental note on what you think about those words. Feel the power and the weight of those words. Without even connecting those words to the context quite yet, I just want you to mediate on them. Let them just sit there...let them seep into you. 

These words almost seem to paint a picture of scale for me.

image take from 

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/scales

In my mind it is as if God is Himself trying to figure who we are/what we are. It is as if He is taking these qualities as parcels to be measured: "On one side they are created in my image...then again they are corrupt....but then again they are very good....but yet, they are so violent...." And we could humorously almost for a second picture God putting his hand to his face in a puzzled and contemplative kind of way...

I want to introduce to you something else about this study. Learning who you are to God does not just define you, but it defines God Himself. And if you think even for minute that God was or is ever puzzled about who/what you are, then do we have A LOT of work cut out for us!

Let's dive into some scripture shall we-I now again make a list of ten; these ten then noting the exact verse(s) our words come from:

1. Genesis 1:26
2. 1:27
3. 1:31
4. 2:7
5. 2:7
6. 1:28
7. 3:22
8. 4:5
9. 6:3,5
10. 6:8

Let's put these into context. I will pick a couple from the list and encourage you to continue with the ones remaining. Let us start with number 1. Our word(s) are "own image." It comes directly from this passage:

 Genesis 1:26 New International Version (NIV/emphasis mine)

"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.”

As we are great studiers of the Word, we would have read the whole chapter gathering the whole picture from which this verse fits into. We would have learned that it is directly said of Adam and Eve, God's first created human beings. But being excellent studiers of the Word we would also know that the words "Adam" and "Eve" are literal words for "man" and "woman." Then as nerds for the Word we would continue to look up the whole verse in the original language in which it was written. We pull out our handy dandy Hebrew Interlinear Bible and gather our geek friends to match via the internet each precise Hebrew word to its English translation. We learn that "own image" looks like this: בְּצַלְמֵ֖נוּ

pronounced "bə·ṣal·mê·nū," which translated means this: to photograph, photocopy

image taken from http://indianexpress.com/article/opinion/columns/photocopying-books-for-students-copyright-high-court-3075857/

Learning is so much fun isn't it!?! Haha yeah. 

Now you may be sitting there reading this thinking you may not even be a great studier of the Word and would have never even guessed that the Holy Bible was partially written in Hebrew. That's ok. I got all the nerdy facts for you. 

But now comes your part. How does this all relate to you? How much will you allow it to be a part of you?

Before you answer that question fully let me drop you another food for thought. As mentioned before, what is said about you also says something about God. What does this all say about God? Maybe to answer our question we need more pieces of the puzzle...pieces like in Colossians 1:15 which claims Jesus as "the image of the invisible God"....hmmmm?

Even if someone knows just one thing about Christianity and that one thing is that it is something about Jesus, then we MUST examine this Jesus even more closely.

We read in John 10:30 that Jesus Himself claims that Him and the Father (God) are one. He read that Jesus Himself prays that we would be one just as He and God are one. We read that in John 1 that the "Living Word" is symbolic of none other than Jesus and that this Word was with God in the beginning....in Genesis.

Making the connections yet?

You want to see God. You want to know what Jesus looked like? Go look in the mirror. 

Image taken from        

http://rebloggy.com/post/disney-the-lion-king-lion-king-rafiki-simba-lives-in-you/24217910923

As Rafiki says to Simba in Lion King, "He lives in you." 

You may now be thinking, "I look nothing like Jesus and thus, am as far away from being an image of God as possible."

Which I think brings us into the dichotomy we find at number four on our list: "Dust and breath."

....which I will uncover in part 2 of "In God's Eyes"

Until then here is some more insight on what it means to be image bearers. 

May it inspire, convict, empower, and invigorate you my brother and sisters that out of all the things that could/can be said of us, God made this to be the first and foremost thing said about you & I. How much so shall it be true in our daily comings and goings???

Theology Dose of the Day

It is important to note that our God is ONE. Although Christians believe that God is represented in three ways, He is still ONE. It is very similar to that which we see in the natures of water. Water can be represented in a solid form, a liquid form, and a gas form. God chooses to represent Himself in the Father, the Holy Spirit, and the son-Jesus Christ. Although these three distinct images of God can come about with their own attributes, God is still ONE. God is fully God in the Father. God is fully God in the Son. And God is fully God in the Holy Spirit. With that being said, we can look at and say that in all the characteristics appointed to one of the Trinity "heads" is appointed to all. Those charistics can be from carrying out justice, to carrying out mercy, to carrying out judgment, to carrying out grace. All is in one because One is in all. God does not split Himself; thus,  His characteristics are not split. God is forever and always full of love, full of righteous anger, full of authority, full of compassion and so on. As a philosophy student, we can read about other religions that worship gods who only carry out one purpose or perhaps only a couple. It is not so with Yahwey.

How does this impact you?=when interacting with God, which I hope you do, it is important to note that you have all of who God is all of the time. This is not what we receive from humankind, more specifically our parents or lovers. When we mess up, the initial reaction from humankind is anger & punishment. They may still say they love you, but the trust most likely will have to be rebuilt-you'll have to prove yourself in some way, shape, or form. Not so with God. When we sin, God does have anger but He also has mercy. The beauty with our God is that when you fall, you  don't have to prove yourself. Why? Because Jesus (God) already made things right for you by dying on a cross & resurrecting on the third day. His sacrifice was your atonement, your redemption, your freedom. Thus, when you fall all you need is to call out to Jesus, accept what He has done for you, & walk into those open arms. The Word says God punishes those He loves. However, that punishment isn't to hurt you-it's to correct & guide you, just like a parent does with their child. But the Word also says that it is His kindness & patience that guides Him. You see with God, your past, present, & future are all held because our God is the same yesterday, today, & tomorrow. God never gives up on you, never stops loving you, never stops trying to get your attention, never forsakes you, never holds your past against you, never forgets you, never lets go of you, & NEVER stops being who He fully is for you.