Yesterday, Today, and Forever

26 And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth. 27 So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.

God’s image is indelibly stamped on each of us at our creation

But unlike God, we do change

We end up vastly different creatures than we were when we began

We progress through the the same time frame that we perceive God passing through, although that perception is very misleading.

We see God as having a yesterday, today, and a future, but He’s not stuck to the time line as we are

It’s a perception we have of God and it’s how He interacts with us in His creation.

Yesterday

We begin

We’re all born into this world, exactly the same way

Different nations, different cultures, different socioeconomic strata, different geography, different families, different family structures, but same basic biology; male or female, all born as babies, hardwired with basic personality and gifts and talents that our Creator endowed us with.

We grow, and we change

We all develop a relationship with our caregiver(s), whether loving, neglectful, or abusive.

This relationship with our caregivers, no matter how hard we try in later years, forms a significant part of who we are, and who we become.

Parents be warned!

Children, this is not an excuse!

We develop relationships with other family members and some outside our family circle

We go through some type of formal education culminating, we hope, in a High School Diploma.

We grow up

We graduate, get a job and/or attend college

Maybe some of us join the military

We get married, start a career, have kids, raise a family

These experiences, and the relationships we cultivate, good, bad, and indifferent, mold us and shape us as individuals and, to a large degree, determine who we become later.

All of us have pleasant, good memories of our past

All of us have bitter, disappointing memories of our past

Concerning these, we always seem to remember the good times, but we are most affected by the bad

Things that happened to us

Parents / caregivers who failed us or let us down, or even actively hurt us

Friends and relatives we trusted who betrayed us

Wrongs we suffered at the hands of those who should have known better

Wounds, hurts, bitterness, unforgiveness, anger

Things we did ourselves

Said things we regret saying

Engaged in activities we regret doing

Got involved with people we wish we’d never have met

Failures. Regrets. People we betrayed, disappointed, let down.

Proverbs 23:7 KJV 1900

7 For as he thinketh in his heart, so is he: Eat and drink, saith he to thee; But his heart is not with thee.

Today

We bring all of this with us into the present.

Two images

How God sees us

How we see ourselves

How we see Ourselves

Our self-image is a conglomeration of all of our past, rolled up into one, easy, simple picture of ourselves.

Unfortunately, as eluded to earlier, we give some parts of our past more weight than others

The negative experiences we have are given much more weight toward this self-image

This self-image is NOT reality, but it becomes OUR reality.

We begin to believe that bad is all that’s going to come our way

Every negative experience reaffirms and reinforces our poor self-image

Every positive experience is a fluke, or its hiding an even greater negative experience

It’s important that we possess the correct self-image.

This self-image affects everything we do, how we conduct ourselves, enters into our relationships and becomes, ultimately, a self-fulfilling prophesy.

How God sees us

God sees us in an entirely different light

Remember that God created us!

God doesn’t see the same image we see

This does not mean He doesn’t see our faults and shortcomings — He does.

Our faults and our shortcomings are not who we are.

But God created us to be victorious. To live from victory to victory! To look and speak and act and think like He does.

This is the image in God’s mind of us.

Our old self-image is a process of self loathing. self hate. Perpetrating against ourselves what we perceive the world has done against us.

The world hates you and seeks at every opportunity to destroy you. One way to accomplish this is to destroy God’s image in you.

Genesis 1:26–27 KJV 1900

Originally, God’s image was indelibly stamped on every human being

After the fall, that image became shattered, marred, distorted, but still there.

Since then, our enemy has convinced many, and has tried to convince you, that that’s not true, and you don’t matter.

You’re broken and irredeemable and that’s just the way it is!

Every bad thing that has happened is because you deserve it!

I mean, let’s face it…that’s just WHO YOU ARE!

The enemy hates you and he wants you to think God hates you and he wants you to hate yourself

Matthew 22:36–40 KJV 1900

36 Master, which is the great commandment in the law? 37 Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. 38 This is the first and great commandment. 39 And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. 40 On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.

We need to love that which God loves, and hate that which God hates.

Are we to actually love ourselves?!!?!

We’ve talked about hating the things God hates. We can only do that because we first love the things God loves!

God loves you!

It’s God desire that we fulfill His image of who we are, not ours. But how???

Transformation. Become a new creature in Christ.

Love

Forever

In This Life

We have two possible outcomes sometime in the future:

The enemy succeeds in completely covering up the image of God in us.

Jesus succeeds in restoring His image in us.

In Eternity

Ultimately

We end up forever separated from the presence of Jesus

We end up forever in the presence of Jesus

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