Thursday 20 September 2007

Thursday Reading: Genesis 1:26-31
 
Key Verse: Genesis 1:27
27  So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.
 
Devotion:
Have you ever wondered why we look the way that we do? Well, it's nothing to do with growing up from a monkey, who grew up from some other animal that grew up from some primordial soup which came from nothing to start with... God created us in His image – He wanted us to be in His image – not to be gods, but to be like Him. So what went wrong? Did the mould break? Did the recipe get spoiled?
 
No, we just chose to be the way that we are now. We chose to be the people that we are. We chose to act the way we do. We chose to be the reckless individuals we are! Even though we started out as being perfect and not having bad thoughts or evil minds... we just had to come along and spoil things for ourselves! And we continue to do that day after day, choosing to spoil things in ways that only we can do!
 
God created us to be like Him. He did not create us to be evil little wretches. He created us in a world that He had just created for us. He made a perfect civilisation based in a perfect world and because of us thinking the way that we do, we decided that we wanted more! No longer were we pleased with everything that God had given us... we wanted more!
 
That is exactly what drives us today – we want more of everything! We want to be able to make things look better. We want to look better ourselves. We want to be better than the person next to us. We want more than them! Why can't we just be pleased with all that God has given us. An amazing planet with beauty beyond comparison suspended in a universe of nothingness that allows stars to shine is a silky black sky at night and warm glowing blue during the daytime. Yet we want to spoil that all by painting it up with anything we can lay our hands on – and yet we are still not satisfied with it... Because we have lost sight of the real beauty that God created!
 
Points to Ponder:
Who do you aspire to be like?
 
What could ever be better than being more like God?