Teaching tips from Maurice Sweetsur

Teaching tip 40 - Made in the Image of God.

Teaching tip 40 - Made in the Image of God.

We are all made in the image of God (Genesis 1.26). This means that we are God-type creatures. When God looks on us, He sees someone like Himself! Thus, we are like God in many ways, and unlike the animals in many ways.

1. 'God is spirit' (John 4.24), so, unlike the animals, we have an eternal (everlasting), immortal (indestructible) spirit. We can be filled with God's Holy Spirit, and pray to God directly.

2. 'God is love' (1 John 4.8), so we can love and worship God, love other people, and know His love. Animals cannot do this.

3. 'God is good' (Psalm 34.8). God is holy and perfect - He never does anything that is wrong - and He commands us to be holy and perfect too (Matthew 5.48). Unlike animals, God has given every person a 'little voice' inside them called a conscience. And this tells us what is right and wrong, warning us when we are about to do something wrong, and making us feel bad if we actually go ahead and do it.

We are different from the animals in many other ways, too.

1. We can talk with other people (as well as with God). Animals signal warnings, aggression or friendship to each other by the sounds they make, by the way they stand or move, by facial expressions, and by odour. However, animals can't speak (or write!) a true language.

2. We can choose what we want to do as a result of thinking about situations and making rational decisions. Animals do things by instinct (Jude v. 10).

3. We cam comfort others in their sorrows and laugh with others in their joys. One animal may help another, but they do not run first-aid clinics or hospitals!

4. We can cook our meals using fire (or electricity). Animals are scared of fire.

5. We can cultivate the fields, planting and reaping crops.

6. We can invent complex things like computer games, musical instruments, paintings, mathematics and aircraft, and use clocks to measure time. Animals can make nests and burrows, but this is the limit of their creativity.

posted by Maurice Sweetsur @ 7:38 PM