Genesis 1:26-31 Complete Jewish Bible
26 Then God said, “Let us make humankind in our image, in the likeness of ourselves; and let them rule over the fish in the sea, the birds in the air, the animals, and over all the earth, and over every crawling creature that crawls on the earth.”
27 So God created humankind in his own image;
in the image of God he created him:
male and female he created them.
28 God blessed them: God said to them, “Be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish in the sea, the birds in the air and every living creature that crawls on the earth.” 29 Then God said, “Here! Throughout the whole earth I am giving you as food every seed-bearing plant and every tree with seed-bearing fruit. 30 And to every wild animal, bird in the air and creature crawling on the earth, in which there is a living soul, I am giving as food every kind of green plant.” And that is how it was. 31 God saw everything that he had made, and indeed it was very good. So there was evening, and there was morning, a sixth day.
The Word of God for the Children of God.
Glory be to the Father,
and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost;
as it was in the beginning,
is now, and ever shall be,
world without end. Amen, amen.
Good news begins right at the beginning. The good news found at the beginning of things in Genesis 1 is there is a God who makes and upholds all that there is, and that we humans, male, female, are made in the image of this amazing God.
We don’t look like God, of course, for God is Spirit—but this means, among other things, that we are God’s representatives. We are called to take care of all that God has made—and not just the creatures mentioned in these verses, but also the unfolding of all human history that follows, in all its deep complexity.
Amazing! Mere mortals are endowed by their Creator with the dignity and the honor of representing the infinite God, acting on God’s behalf to care for his creation with all its diverse infinite potential. We are God’s agents with a most prestigious, singularly unique job description – Stewards of Creation. And this leads us, with high joy, gratitude, to a profound sense of identity and calling.
This is good news for everyone, of course—but perhaps especially for people whose sense of identity and purpose are diminished, are uncertain, whose own ability to live creatively, joyfully and fully, completely and purposefully are held back because of poverty or anything else that hinders their participation in life.
Good news for the poor begins with a reminder that they all bear God’s image.
God has been reaching out since the beginning of time—desiring to live in a close relationship with all of humankind But because of our sin…because we have turned our backs on God and (in essence) told Him to butt out of our lives…we are separated from Him.
From the start, God has created a way for us to reconnect to Him by offering us salvation: an incredible gift of grace that comes through the life, death, and resurrection of His son, Jesus. And we receive this gift of grace the moment we accept Jesus as our Lord and Savior—turning our lives over to Him completely.
Each and everyone of us comes to this decision differently because each and every one of us has a uniquely different experience…or path, journey to Jesus.
Even though each of our journeys is singularly unique, the Bible shows us that there are some key (and consistent) components every true follower of Jesus experiences.
Let’s look at those five key components…
STEP 1 – Hear the Gospel
As you may already know, the “gospel” literally means “good news.” The good news of the gospel begins with God, the Creator of everything. And He is holy…which means He is set apart from anything that is un-holy. And God is perfect (or whole), without any defect. And He is righteous…which means God always does what is right. And He is just. His justice is always fair.
So, because God is the Creator; Holy, Righteous, Perfect and Just, we have a problem. We who are human are none of those things. We are created by God (in his image), but — here’s the bad news — we are everyone of us, without any exceptions, fallen and broken and un-very holy…imperfect, unrighteous and unjust, learned PhD’s in sinning. Just as the Apostle Paul writes in Romans…
“What shall we conclude then? Are we any better? Not at all! We have already made the charge that Jews and Gentiles alike are all under sin. As it is written: There is no one righteous, not even one; there is no one who understands, no one who seeks God. All have turned away, they have together become worthless; there is no one who does good, not even one. And just in case you thought you could try to be good enough to earn good standing with God.” – Romans chapter 3, verses 9-12
Exactly how many broken links (or sins) does it take to break the chain of our connection to God)? The answer: One. All it takes is one broken link or one sin to break our connection God. And all of us have sinned—at least once.
All of us, without exception have broken our connection to God. Another thing we might tell ourselves is, “If I really clean up my act…it will automatically be enough to connect me back to God.”
Once again, as Paul writes…
“All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” – Romans 3:23
So there it is. The Bad News.
But here’s the Good News. Here’s the gospel…
“But now a righteousness from God, apart from law, has been made known, to which the Law and the Prophets testify. This righteousness from God comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. There is no difference, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus. God presented him as a sacrifice of atonement, through faith in his blood. He did this to demonstrate his justice, because in his forbearance he had left the sins committed beforehand unpunished — he did it to demonstrate his justice at the present time, so as to be just and the one who justifies those who have faith in Jesus.” – Romans 3:21-26
Sin separates us from God. And what is sin? The biblical definition of sin is actually an archery term meaning: missing the mark. We have all sinned or missed the mark of God’s perfection. And the punishment for this is death. Someone has to pay for these mistakes. We all know, deep in our hearts, what justice is. When a wrong has been committed, someone has to pay for it.
The Good News is that Jesus — the Incarnation or God in the Flesh — the one who never sinned or missed the mark, took our place and paid for our mistakes.
Jesus took on ALL our sin when he died on the cross.
The Apostle Paul put it this way…
“Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God. Not only so, but we also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us. You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous man, though for a good man someone might possibly dare to die.
But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Since we have now been justified by his blood, how much more shall we be saved from God’s wrath through him! For if, when we were God’s enemies, we were reconciled to him through the death of his Son, how much more, having been reconciled, shall we be saved through his life! Not only is this so, but we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation.” – Romans 5:1-11
So, while we were still sinners…still living in our sinful way of life, God showed his love for us in Jesus’ sacrificial death on the cross.
That’s GRACE.
Grace is unmerited favor or getting something wonderful that you didn’t earn or deserve. And you can’t pay for it or earn it.
All you can do is accept this wonderful, eternal gift.
One of the best ways to remember the meaning of grace is this acronym:
Grace = God’s Riches At Christ’s Expense.
STEP 2 – Believe
At some point, after hearing the Gospel, you believe in your heart that all this stuff is true.
That God is holy.
That you, me, we are separated from Him and that you can only be reconciled or reconnected back to God through Jesus.
And that belief is so strong that you are “cut to the heart”.
You have that utter realization that the only way back to God is through Jesus.
This is the way some of the first people to hear the Good News felt…
“When the people heard this, they were cut to the heart and said to Peter and the other apostles, ‘Brothers, what shall we do?’” – Acts 2:37
This “cutting to the heart” can only come from God.
Just as Jesus says here…
“No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him, and I will raise him up at the last day.” – John 6:44
Looking back over this, we Hear the Gospel, then Believe what we’ve heard and then we repent.
STEP 3 – Repent
“To “repent” literally means to “turn away”.
We must turn away from sin or turn our backs to sin…putting our backs to our old way of life. And when we turn from sin, we naturally turn towards God—doing a complete about face. As Jesus was spreading the Good News He said…
“The time has come,” (Jesus said). “The kingdom of God has come near. Repent and believe the good news!” – Mark 1:15
The next logical step to repenting from our old way of life, from our old life of sinning is to share this change in our hearts or to confess to some other people what’s happened.
STEP 4 – Confess
Confession or to confess simply means to say it out loud—to say what is true out loud and publicly recognize that: God is holy and perfect and you are not.
Confessing to other people means our speaking to our true belief that God has reconnected you back to Him through Jesus…because Jesus has taken your sin to the cross, and that you want to repent and so turn away from our sins and from our sinful past.
Paul says it best here…
“That if you confess with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you confess and are saved.” – Romans 10:9-10
But from the beginning it needs to be clearly understood the journey isn’t over.
It continues and will continue on and on and on because this is all about becoming more like Jesus.
As we begin this new life as a follower of Jesus, we have this gift of the Holy Spirit…which is God’s Spirit literally living inside us…guiding us and prompting us to grow and become more and more like Him. More and more like Jesus. And we do this by following Jesus’ words found in the Bible—through Bible study.
And we do this by reminding ourselves we are living and acting as Jesus did.
Doing the things Jesus did, like loving others, caring for the “least of these.”
In the name of God, the Father and God the Son and God the Holy Spirit,
Let us Pray,
Psalm 8 New American Standard Bible 1995
The Lord’s Glory and Man’s Dignity.
For the choir director; on the Gittith. A Psalm of David.
8 O Lord, our Lord,
How majestic is Your name in all the earth,
Who have [a]displayed Your splendor above the heavens!
2 From the mouth of infants and nursing babes You have established [b]strength
Because of Your adversaries,
To make the enemy and the revengeful cease.
3 When I [c]consider Your heavens, the work of Your fingers,
The moon and the stars, which You have [d]ordained;
4 What is man that You [e]take thought of him,
And the son of man that You care for him?
5 Yet You have made him a little lower than [f]God,
And You crown him with glory and majesty!
6 You make him to rule over the works of Your hands;
You have put all things under his feet,
7 All sheep and oxen,
And also the [g]beasts of the field,
8 The birds of the heavens and the fish of the sea,
Whatever passes through the paths of the seas.
9 O Lord, our Lord,
How majestic is Your name in all the earth!
Glory be to the Father,
and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost;
as it was in the beginning,
is now, and ever shall be,
world without end. Amen, amen.
Loving God, Living God, Loving Hope, Living Hope, Loving Living Life His Way! "Many things are possible for the person who has hope. Even more is possible for the person who has faith. And still more is possible for the person who knows how to love. But everything is possible for the person who practices all three virtues." - Brother Lawrence (1605-1691), Practicing the Presence of God (1692). 