Why He made you in His image? And then why He put you on this earth?

A THEORY
Scientists say that one day the sun will burn out. I believe them! Their hypothesis directly relates to the answer to each of the questions above.

THE EVIDENCE
When God made the heavens and the earth, they were perfect (Genesis 1:1). I think we can all agree on that! Then evil rose up in Lucifer’s heart; he wanted to be like God (Is. 14: 12-15). This happened long before Adam and Eve were created. So God cast the adversary down from the heavens he corrupted into the earth, which became formless, void, and dark because of his presence (Genesis 1:2). In other words, the adversary brought chaos upon the earth. It, too, was corrupt.

THE PLAN
To redeem that which had been perfect, God devised a plan. I can imagine He said, “I am going to give this earth to humans (Genesis 1:26) [THIS IS WHY HE MADE YOU]. It does not belong to the adversary; I made hell for him and his angels. I will make my humans in my image and my likeness so that they will KNOW . . .
that the earth belongs to them;
that I have given them the authority to take control of it;
that I sanctioned and signed this deed to the entire earth.”
And He wanted us to have the power to subdue and cultivate the earth and to resist the evil that has been cast into it.
[THIS IS WHY HE MADE YOU IN HIS IMAGE]

To assist, God makes a temporary light for humans (Genesis 1: 3-5) — the sun so that we would not be perpetually afraid of the dark.
This was not his original plan, but now it becomes the plan for redemption of the heavens and the earth.

OUR MISSION — Should we choose to accept it.
God says, “Occupy until I come.” Adam is not able to hold out, although he was in the image of God, so God sends the Light of the World to give man greater hope of subduing the earth and his enemy. He redeems us. Our mission is to hold out until the world is redeemed. If we hold out, the earth is ours and iniquity will not rise up a second time [THIS IS WHY HE PUT YOU ON EARTH].

THE PROMISE
One day the sun will burn out because the book of Revelation tells us that at the end of the age, there will be no need of the sun, for the Son of God will light the heavens, the earth, and the entire universe.

PRAYER: Father, you trust us to partner with you in the redemption of the world. Wow! Do we feel special? Yes! Do we feel loved? Indeed! We have missed it, and you have been patient. The world is so topsy-turvy! The reason: we have not been occupying until you come. We didn’t know that we were this important to your whole plan. Thank you for not giving up on us . . . for not destroying us and starting with a whole new batch. We love you. Thank you for giving earth to us! We will hold out and subdue until the Light of the World lights heaven and the whole earth with his glory. Amen!

“The one who sits on the throne says, ‘Behold! I make all things new.’” (Revelation 21:5)

Enjoy “Who Am I” by Casting Crowns!

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You’ve seen at least one of the following movies, I’m sure — “Freaky Friday“! “Big”! “17 Again“! and now “The Change-Up“! In those movies, someone exchanges his/her life for another, whether willingly or unwillingly. Before there were any of these movies, one of the biggest universal change-ups of all times ocurred and we could have missed it — even those of us involved in the change-up may have missed the magnitude of it. Let me cut to the chase:

Yeshua was made like Adam so that we could become like Him. — A CHANGE-UP!

ADAM

• made in the image of God — “God created mankind in his own image” (Gen. 1:27)
• had God’s nature — “Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness” (Gen. 1:26)
• created to live forever — “…for when you eat from it you will certainly die” (Gen. 2:17)
• had free will . . . “You are free to eat from any tree in the garden;  but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil“ (Gen. 2:16-17)
• in that free will he chose to disobey God rather than embrace him — “She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it.” (Gen. 3:6)

YESHUA

• was/is God — “Who, being in very nature, God” (Phil. 2:6)
• made like Adam —  “being made in human likeness” (Phil 2:7)
• as a man he submitted to death — “And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to death” (Phil. 2:8ab)
• as a man he died — “even death on the cross” (Phil. 2:8c)
• he had free will
• and in that free will He chose to be obedient to His Father

Isn’t it wonderful that when Yeshua came He did not say that he was making us like Adam! He was making us like Himself! The first Adam is not our lot! That’s what I was! That’s not what we are aspiring to. I don’t want to know anything else about the first Adam or to become what he was. I want to manifest the 2nd Adam.
DON’T MISS THE CHANGE-UP. HE DID IT! WHEN WE ACCEPTED YESHUA’S ATONING WORKING IT WAS DONE IN US. Now our job is to live it!

It’s not Freaky! It’s divine!

It’s not Big! It’s gargantuan!

It’s not 17 again! It’s like God again!

We were not put on earth to learn ABOUT God. We were put on earth to MANIFEST God!

PRAYER: Father, we don’t really know what you have called us to. You want us to be great . . . because You’re great! What a great day to be able to say to someone, “You want to know what God looks like — look at me.” We just don’t know how amazing we are!  Help us not only to live what you have called us to but to see it through your eyes! Amen!

Let’s join the Women of Faith as they sing “Trading My Sorrows”:

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Every month your bank sends you a statement, making you aware of how much money you have saved and the interest you have earned. Your investment company does the same with your IRA’s or TSA’s. Depending upon the market and your future plans, you know if you need to increase your deposit. You can sit back and watch your savings grow and then plan your life and future accordingly.

In Matthew 6:20, Yeshua says to “Store up riches for yourselves in heaven” (TEV). I don’t get a monthly statement from heaven letting me know I much I have stored up. God doesn’t even whisper in my ear, “Do some more good works. Your savings are a little lean.” I realized that I don’t know how much treasure I have stored up in heaven, but Yeshua himself says to “store” it up.

• Here’s a question: What if I knew? Would my storage be based upon my greed, my self-centeredness? Probably so! Oh, let me do a few more good works to increase my treasure. But here’s a revelation that just hit me–my love for God is the only thing that matters. It will determine how much treasure I have stored up in heaven! The more I love Him, the more I do the things that are motivated by His love = (equals) the more treasure I have.

I must admit, it would be nice to get a statement from heaven showing a bulging account. But you know exactly what I would do — yes, I’d rest on my laurels.

• Unfortunately, on earth we save and may not get a chance to enjoy our treasures because of an early death. Someone else gets to enjoy it. But in heaven, they are mine and I have a guarantee that I will enjoy them! Can’t beat those dividends!
• Another thing is — I don’t even know what kind of treasure it is. What is it? Maybe the amount of treasure we have should matter but what kind it is should not — heavenly treasure is not even weighed by the same measure as earthly treasure! Yooo Hooo!

Anyway, here’s to doing what Yeshua admonished us to do — storing up treasures for ourselves in heaven!

PRAYER: Father, I’m glad it’s You keeping track of our accounts. I’m glad it’s You motivating our hearts to love You. I’m glad it’s You telling us that what we do on earth in the Name of Your Son will last throughout all eternity — not just last but be treasure for us in heaven. Moth can’t corrupt it! Time can’t destroy it! Decay can’t touch it! I don’t know how much it is or what kind it is — all I know is Your loving, just heart! Thank you for giving me the chance to work for You! Nothing can be the wages I earn with you! Yoo Hooo! Ooops! Amen!

Here’s to all that matters: 

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Related articles

• Where the Heart Is? ~ Part 5 (hisimagenme.wordpress.com)
• Weekly Wisdoms for the week of July 4, 2011 (christianfamilymatters.wordpress.com)

If I am traveling, seldom do I think about enjoying the journey. My sights are set upon the destination — the friends that I will see at the end; the majestic mountains that I will behold; the beaches that will be as blue and  as clear as the sky. The trip there by car will be long and the flight will be bumpy and claustrophobic. Yet, our God calls us to enjoy the trip. How do I know? Well, he gave us an example. After creating each day’s wonders, he sat back, enjoyed it, and said it was good. Was He looking toward the finished work on the 6th day? No doubt. But He was enjoying the journey that would take Him there.

Think about Apostle Paul. Most of his letters were penned while he traveled by boat between various places of ministry or, at best, while he sat in house arrest or in the dungeon of a Roman prison. Could it be that God even allowed the prison stays just so his spirit could be at rest? And look at what came out of those moments of rest! Letters — depths of wisdom, and reveries of love for His God — that we may not have received had Paul not learned to enjoy the journey.

Here is an example of what he writes from being confined within a house with guards around the clock: “Yes, I will continue to rejoice, for I know that through your prayers and the help given by the Spirit of Jesus Christ, what has happened to me will turn out for my deliverance” (Philippians 1:18c-19). He had learned to rejoice in the journey and realized that the journey was just as important as the destination.

What a lesson!

Enjoy your journey today! Smell a flower! Smile at a stranger! Gaze upon the clouds! Breathe in the earth after a rain! Hug a friend, relative, spouse, child a little longer today. And thank God for the journey.

PRAYER: Father, thank you! I guess it goes back to the Scripture that says not to think about tomorrow because tomorrow has enough trouble of its own! So I rejoice in the journey. Every portion of it is an opportunity to see and know You a little more! Yes, I will rejoice. In Yeshua’s Name! Amen!

Enjoy William Murphy and Nicole Binion as they proclaim along their journey, “I Will Rejoice” and be glad.

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Related articles

• Prayer for the Journey (countingmyblessings.typepad.com)
• The Journey is the Destination (blottyp.wordpress.com)

I was raised by a Christian mother and went to church two to three times a week, so I knew “something” about God. I remember my innocent talks with God as a child. After that, my prayers became bedtime rituals . . . but when I made a profession of my love for Jesus/Yeshua at the age of 22, my first two experiences with prayer didn’t seem quite adequate enough.

• First of all, I did have to come as His child, but all those public prayers that I heard in church did not sound like a child talking to a Father. They were more like guilty people talking to a judge or a sick person imploring a healer to make Him well.
• Just as I did as a child, I knew I had to talk to Him with genuineness and sincerity, but this time I had made an open, public declaration of my love for and my faith in Him. What was I to do?

Understanding what I went through, I want to lift up “those who are learning about prayer,” a focus again taken from my UPPER ROOM Devotional. Would you pray with me today?

• Father, those who are learning to pray, be with them as you were with me.
• Teach them that all they need is a sincere heart to talk to you. Teach them the truth of your words, that if they seek you they will find you.
• Teach them that prayer is not linear; it’s not just they talk to you and you listen. Teach them that prayer is cyclical. They talk, you listen; you talk back; they listen; and they respond. And the wonderful cycle continues. Let them know that their response to hearing you in the secret place is also a part of prayer.
• Abba, let them know you as Daddy. Show them what it means to be your child. They never need to be ashamed or scared to come to you. All they need to do is just come — just as they are!

Let their talks with you be exciting, edifying, sobering, and elevating! May they find incredible communion with you in the secret place!

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I woke up the morning after my flight to West Palm Beach with great neck and ear pain. Ironically when I read my UPPER ROOM DEVOTIONAL, the prayer focus was “airline and airport personnel.”

So will you join me as we lift them before God today?

Father, we pray for the airlines, everyone connected with them. The ticket agents who deal with short-tempered people, late for their flights and taking their frustration out on the agents. Bless these ticket agents. I pray for baggage personnel who need to make sure that the correct baggage is transferred to the proper planes. Give them great strength and wisdom. I pray for ticket/ID checkers & x-ray machine operaters; give them keen eyes and alertness to see any device that will potentially harm the passengers and workers and to detect anyone traveling in subterfuge. I lift up flight attendants who serve to make our flights pleasant; some of them do it for the money, the adventure; for some it is a passion. Give them your grace to give that grace to others. For the pilots we pray rest before their flights; against any kind of substance abuse; we pray for disciplined lives; we pray for vigilance and sobriety, for mental acuity and success in every flight. For the air traffic controllers we pray that they would have great vision and alertness and seriousness for their jobs and a greater passion to see planes make safe landings. Thank you for the ground crew who make sure that the way is clear for planes to connect to the concourse; give them great success on their jobs as well, Father. And for technicians and mechanics, give them great expertise in their craft and thank you for their wisdom in judging the integrity of planes and halting them for departure . . . even though we as passengers complain and berate them. All we’re thinking about is getting home, and they are thinking about the safety of the plane and our safety.

Thank you for all those who make air travel as safe and as pleasant as possible. Thank you for the wisdom you have given man to travel this way. You are indeed an amazing God! Amen!

“I try to get up in the morning and spend time with God like others do,” a woman confessed, “but I can’t seem to do it.”

I knew right away that she had been trying to fit into a mold that someone else had carved out for her. We do it all the time. We have done it our entire lives, so then it would only make logical sense to carry that “I-want-to-be-a-part-of-the-club” mentality with us into the Kingdom of God.

For instance, there was a time that I would fall to my knees and pray before I went to bed. Then I heard someone telling us how to get closer to God. “You don’t have to get on your knees,” he said. “There are so many postures to prayer. I can pray lying in bed.”

So I tried it. I tried to do what he said. After all, he had more experience with the Lord than I did, and if I wanted to fit into this new club, I should do the same. It did not work for me . . . it only serve to break a rhythm for me.

We must remember that God is our plumbline. He is the one upon whom we should set our sights and focus. He is the One who tells us how He likes us to worship Him or commune with Him. I am the only one who can be ME with Him. You are the only one who can be YOU with Him.

Notice, God did not give a hard and fast rule on how to spend time with Him. Yeshua got up early in the morning — but He never said, “This is how it is to be done.” He prayed on a mountain, in a boat, before a tomb — but he never said, “You need to kneel here or lie there!” And if He did not say it, maybe I should not listen to others who tell what posture I should take or the time of day I should pray. Yeshua just wants us to love Him. He just wants our time! If that works for you best lying in bed, then do it! Kneeling! Do it! Lying prostrate! Do it! Praying in the morning! Yay! At night! Hurrah! All day long! To God be the Glory!

PRAYER: Forgive us for allowing others to fit us into their molds. Help us to forgive them and ourselves for placing the thoughts and ideas of others above yours. Show me how to worship you as only I can do it! Show me how to spend time with you as only I can do it! Thank you for putting my gaze back upon you.

Enjoy this prophetic song by Misty Edwards: “I Knew What I Was Getting into“:

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My prayer focus this morning from my UPPER ROOM Devotional is “those who repair roads.” As I prayed for them, I thought of all the others we fail to mention in our prayers who make our lives a little easier. So I want to thank God for those working in the heat today to earn a living and to make it easier and safer for us to drive and to be safe on the roads — those with jackhammers, and cement trucks, holding flags and signs. Bless them today, Father!

I ask you today to bless janitors, secretaries, bricklayers, masons, welders, carpenters, roofers. Thank you for their service to us and especially to your people.

I bless hair stylists and barbers, telephone operators and “go-fers”! May a kind word be spoken to all of them today, especially from your people. May we be an instrument of your love to those who serve in the trenches and are seldom recognized! Bless these unsung heroes today, Father.

I Dedicate this song to the unsung heroes and those who will bless them: “Prayer for a Friend” by Casting Crowns:

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After having devotions with my niece, it was time for us to pray. Our prayer focus was “those who needed comfort.” I thought about the encounters  just this week I had of those who needed comfort:

1. a woman who had lost her sister and was not able to attend the funeral services.
2. another woman who was told by her doctor that the cancer had spread to her lungs;
3. a man whose marriage is failing;
4. a young woman with a chronic illness that debilitates her for long periods of time;
5. a woman whose husband has missed three days work because he is under spiritual attack;
6. an older woman who was involved in her first car accident at the age of 88;
7. a young woman who had surgery to her leg;
8. a mother who can’t seem to trust God for the welfare of her son;
9. a family traveling from Atlanta to Virginia with no money;
10. a woman of God who had been awake for 2 nights with chronic asthma;
11. another woman who was sitting in a credit counseling service because she is being overwhelmed by debt;
12. a young woman on whose heart the doctor found scar tissue–signs of a previous, undetected heart attack;

THAT WAS JUST THIS WEEK, but the list goes on! Apostle Paul called God “the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort” (2 Corinthians 1) My niece prayed something that I wish all of us could do, exhibit, manifest . . . show. She said, “Father help us to comfort others with the same comfort that you give us.” That’s exactly what Paul prayed: “…so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves receive from God” (2 Corinthians 1:4b).

PRAYER: Abba, Ava Rachameen/Father of Compassion, you comfort us in all our troubles. You promised that those who mourn would be comforted. Touch all your children who need to be comforted today, so that we, in turn, will be able to comfort others. Amen.

Be comforted by the anointed music of Dennis Jernigan, “When the Night is Falling”:

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