Created For His Glory

Genesis 1:26-31.......

Sometime back, I began to ponder on this Christmas season and the TRUE message of Jesus Christ. In my thoughts, Christ and His coming the 1st time began to fill my mind. Mainly, the idea of Him coming to earth as man. That is why Christmas is celebrated! Emmanuel “God with us!” Jesus is not a created being, He has been from the beginning, just as His Father!

John 1:1-2 “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God.” This is such a powerful TRUTH! Believing this and then knowing that Jesus came and why He came.......He is our rescue, He is our source of true life and existence! John 3:16 “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.”

As I began to delve into this marvelous truth, the Lord brought me back to a sermon I heard. In that sermon, the preacher spoke of a painter, Paul Gauguin. He was a french painter, who was friends with Vincent Van Gogh. Gauguin also influenced Pablo Picasso. Gauguin painted a scene of women in different stages in their lives. 1.) The beginning of life. 2.)Their young adulthood 3.) Approaching death.

It is said that Gauguin had many calamities happen in his life at this point and time, financial, health, and his was also informed of his daughter’s death at this time.

He titled that painting “Where did we come from? What are we? Where are we going?

The 2nd questions is to be understood as: “Why are we here, what is our purpose?”

Right after he finished that painting, he attempted suicide with arsenic and was unsuccessful. He died of an illness some 6 years after.

Those questions pulled me away for a moment and got me into the mode of these questions, which really are good questions. There is on guy I know that takes credit for these questions and uses them in ministry, he didn’t come up with them like he says, but nevertheless they are effective.

In searching our true existence, we will find our desperate need for Jesus to come to our rescue!!!

Let’s try to answer those questions, Genesis 1:26-31.........I want to start by us understanding that obviously this is before the fall of Adam & Eve. This creation scene, man and woman were created as sinless beings, intended to be sinless beings!

The phrasing in verse 26, “let Us make.....” has been misinterpreted and misrepresented on many occasions and still is.

Some try define what God meant by “Us”, some try and distort the purpose of this text and say that if the the Godhead comes together and makes something, as one so-called preacher stated: “If a cat come together with another cat, they make what???? Cats. So if Gods come together and create they make what?? His and the congregations answer was “gods”!

This is false teaching, we are not gods with a little g!

I do believe it is the Godhead, the Trinity, God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit, coming together not in a human way, but in God’s way and making man!

Next part is debated as well, but it is the essence of everything, the desire of God was to make humans in Their Image and Likeness.

All of creation from the plant life to animal life to humans, is one of great wonder! The physical body is amazing in all of it’s ways that it works and works together.

However, this image and likeness that we are made in is not speaking of the physical body.

Can’t be, because we have images of man being worshipped in Scripture and still today, matter of fact the image of the beast during the tribulation will be demanded.

This is not what God is meaning by this........God’s creation that resembled was the soul of man!

I agree with that because of the Whole Counsel of God! When I read John 4:24 “God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth.”

The soul of man was in the image and likeness of God!

Does God have a form, I am not sure how that works out but I will tell you what we do know, is the part of God that passed by Moses, the only part that Moses could look on, God’s back parts, which was declared to Moses by God: Exodus 34:6-7 “And the Lord passed by before him, and proclaimed, The Lord, The Lord God, merciful and gracious, longsuffering, and abundant in goodness and truth, Keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, and that will by no means clear the guilty; visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children, and upon the children’s children, unto the third and to the fourth generation.”

The essence of God, the nature of God is what we were created after!

Memory, Knowledge, and Will.....is all of the human nature that separates itself from the plant and animal kingdom.

The human is created extremely superior to the animals and plants, just as God is extremely superior to us.

In creation God gave us dominion, authority over His creation, just as He has extreme authority over all things, us included!

One writer wrote: “God was now producing a spirit, and a spirit, too, formed after the perfections of his own nature. God is the fountain whence this spirit issued, hence the stream must resemble the spring which produced it. God is holy, just, wise, good, and perfect; so must the soul be that sprang from him: there could be in it nothing impure, unjust, ignorant, evil, low, base, mean, or vile. It was created after the image of God; and that image, St. Paul tells us, consisted in righteousness, true holiness, and knowledge.”

This is where we come from, now we must deal with what are we or why are we here?

Martin Luther wrote that man’s intellect and will have remained, but both have been greatly corrupted. He also stated that satan has a will and intellect, even more so than we do, but it is corrupt and the fall of man has corrupted and weakened our intellect and will.

The purpose of God’s originally creation was to glorify Him, in that we were like Him in our essence; that is why we are here!

Moses could not see the fulness of God because of our fall! We stepped out of the will of God and followed the will of man and there is nothing in the will of man!

Just go back to the questions burning within the painter and the almost eternal result of seeking out the will of man!

The will of man is empty, the will of God is that man glorifies Him!

Adam Clarke wrote: “The text tells us man was the work of ELOHIM, the Divine Plurality, marked here more distinctly by the plural pronouns US and OUR; and to show that man was the masterpiece of God’s creation, all the persons in the Godhead are represented as united in counsel and effort to produce this astonishing creature.”

This astonishing creature has fallen! When we understand this, we begin to understand God’s judgement, but what moves my heart is His forgiveness! It is as Scripture declares unsearchable in my mind, I must believe!

Psalm 145:3 “Great is the Lord, and greatly to be praised; And his greatness is unsearchable.”

Ephesians 3:8 “Unto me, who am less than the least of all saints, is this grace given, that I should preach among the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ;”

We were created for God’s Glory, to express His glory, to be examples of His glory, yet we have fallen and the law was instituted to redeem us but their was no heart in their keeping the law, not true repentance, just a get out of jail free method!

God in His mercy made a New Covenant with mankind, not written in stone but upon the heart! Jesus Christ coming to redeem man back to his original state which is to glorify God!

2 Corinthians 3:16-18..........This liberty in Christ no longer is about what we can and can’t get away with, it is more about returning to our Creator and our original purpose which is to glorify God!

This whole chapter speaks of Moses after he was with God and God passed by him, when he come down from the mountain, he had to be veiled because the Glory of God shown upon His face and no one could look upon that Glory!

But now, the Glory of God has been shown through the person and complete work of Jesus! When it shall turn to the Lord Jesus the veil is removed!

The only way is through Christ, without Him, the veil is still there and our original purpose is gone!

We must turn to Jesus: Martin Luther wrote: “The chief purpose of the Gospel of Jesus Christ is to restore us to that lost image, yes, to a better one; for by faith we are born again unto eternal life, so we may live in God, and with God, and be one with God”

Where the Spirit of the Lord (Jesus Christ) there is liberty to show God’s glory, wherein we are incapable of without Jesus!

The work of Christ through His Word and through the Spirit, which reveals nothing but Jesus to us, changes us into the same image, the image of Christ that does nothing but glorify God!

Glory to more glory to more glory and on and on!

Lastly, Colossians 3:1-17...........We have been here before, this might be one of my favorite passages from Paul......it rings true in my heart, with what we have read today, it should make an even more powerful impact!

We are dead, the old has been put to death, the corrupted creation, the corrupted image, the soul has been mortified, and is now hid with Christ in God!

We now, can only glorify God through Jesus Christ! Through Jesus is our original image and is where we hide!

I cannot through my own efforts reach the perfections of the pre-fallen man, but through Christ I can! I therefore am hid with Christ to bring myself to my original purpose!

Christ therefore is my life, I live to glorify God, but not me, my works stink in the nostrils of God, but Christ’s work glorifies God!

The question becomes: What am I? Am I created to glorify God or myself? Why am I here? For my best life now? Or to glorify God?

The reality is that we were created to glorify God, but satan has tried to blind your eyes from that truth!

So many things in life that pull us away from our original purpose, this is why Christ came to redeem us back to our original purpose!

Put to death those old desires, believe that the old man, the pull to glorify yourself or family, which leads to all those actions in verse 8....anger, malice, blasphemy, filthy talk, lying.......put to death those desires.....go back to verse 5 it says to mortify your members which are upon the earth.......these members are the results of the fall they are earthy......1 Cor 15:47-49 “The first man Adam is of the earth, earthy: the second man (Jesus) is the Lord from heaven. 48 As is the earthy, such are they also that are earthy: and as is the heavenly, such are they also that are heavenly. 49 And as we have borne the image of the earthy, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly.”

Put to death those earthy desires and hide yourself in the Image of the Lord Jesus Who is Heavenly!

Put on the new man, the man created for it’s original purpose! Renewed in knowledge after the Image that created us!

In this image their is no race, no ethnicity, no denominations, no places, but it is Christ and Christ is everything, all sufficient!!!

You know you can continue to believe that somehow or another this life is about you and you will continue to go through this life in torment, as was the painter who asked the 3 questions!

Knowledge of this truth settles it for me, this knowledge brings liberty and peace! The question marks are turned into exclamation points!

The most amazing thing about this knowledge, is the Grace and Mercy of God! This goes all the way back to John 3:16-17 “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved.”..............We corrupted our original purpose out of desire to know as God knows, we see now that we can’t handle that knowledge.......if you don’t believe take a brief tour through history, also look at today’s world and tell me if you think that living for man is working out!

Yet, in our disobedience God sent His Son, John 1:14 “And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth.”

God sent Him to this fouled up earth as fouled up man, to be our righteousness, to die our death, and be resurrected so that we might live through Him!!!!

Jesus prayed this to His Father Elohim, moments before He was arrested, tried,and crucified.............. John 17:1-5 “These words spake Jesus, and lifted up his eyes to heaven, and said, Father, the hour is come; glorify thy Son, that thy Son also may glorify thee: As thou hast given him power over all flesh, that he should give eternal life to as many as thou hast given him. And this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent. I have glorified thee on the earth: I have finished the work which thou gavest me to do. And now, O Father, glorify thou me with thine own self with the glory which I had with thee before the world was.”

This is what Christmas is all about!