We Are Image-Bearers of Our Creator
humanity reflects His image and is crowned with glory and honor.
By: David Goodrich, Middle school principal
Our God's excellencies and the hidden wonders of His glory are displayed throughout his creation. His natural world serves as a sanctuary for wondering, exploring, and discovering unknown treasures. Truly, Isaiah paints an accurate picture when he declares, "Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts; the whole earth is full of his glory!" (Isaiah 6:3).
The Earth Is Full of His Glory
A few years ago, my family and I traveled to the last frontier … Alaska. I vividly recall the moment when the captain announced a little before bedtime that we would reach the outer banks of Alaska sometime around 3:30 in the morning.
Overwhelmed with excitement, I turned in early and set my alarm in hopes of waking and catching a glimpse of an untouched part of creation. To my astonishment, in the wee hours of the morning, the water was calm and bursting with life, the sky was majestic and full of light, the mountains glistened, and the sounds all around me echoed the Creator.
The last frontier was indeed a paradise, a wilderness full of diversity and endless possibilities. Everywhere you turned, Alaska declared the glory and majesty of God. Five days in Alaska mesmerized every one of my senses and gifted me with a tangible understanding of the Psalmist when he writes, "When I look at the heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon, and the stars, which you have set in place, what is man that you are mindful of him, and the son of man that you care for him?" (Psalm 8:3-4).
The Crowning Jewel of His Creation
One would assume that the natural world, with its beauty and wonder, would be the crowning jewel of creation. Yet, Psalm 8:5-6 declares, "Yet you have made him a little lower than the heavenly beings and crowned him with glory and honor. You have given him dominion over the works of your hands; you have put all things under his feet."
What a humbling, glorious, and saddening truth! How could an insignificant thing like man, whilst standing in Alaska's backdrop, be God's crowning jewel? Surely, one must agree with the Psalmist, "what is man that you are mindful of him?"
Genesis 1:27 provides us some insight, "So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them." Though the last frontier bears the Creator's marks, humanity reflects His image and is crowned with glory and honor.
The Wonder and Beauty of His Image-Bearers
Why then do I find myself enraptured more in the physical than the eternal? Why do I so often overlook the beauty, diversity, and majesty of my fellow image-bearers?
Stretching to see beyond our purview, we find the answer in Genesis 3 … "the fall" and the subsequent consequences. The saddening truth for me is that I am so consumed by my own fears, anxiety, failures, and pursuits that I fail to see my brothers’ and sisters' beauty and diversity in Christ.
However, when walking in and seeing through the lens of the Holy Spirit, the wonder and beauty of His image-bearers far surpass the natural world's temporal landscape.
God's image and likeness are not adorned in shades of gray but in glorious color, shape, sizes, intelligence, socio-economic, ethnic, and racial variances. Every grouping of humanity reflects the beauty of our Creator!
The Good News
Covenant family, would you join me this season of Lent by not simply giving up a temporal desire or pleasure but by daring to lock arms with and serve one another. As Proverbs 27:17 tells us, “Iron sharpens iron, and one man sharpens another.” We are better together!
Moreover, would you join me in looking forward not just to the end of COVID or suffering but to the day when our Savior returns and "renews all things": marriages, relationships, oppression, disease, sickness, pain, and more.
In the waiting, there is good news! Christ's kingdom has come, is coming, and will come again!
Therefore, rejoice, knowing that for those "cloaked in the blood Jesus" your redemption is secure, and death has been defeated. And may we see the beauty in one another as image-bearers of our Creator.
God shows up in our messy places and transforms ordinary moments into holy ones.