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Topic:The glory and misery of man
DEVOTION OF APRIL 8
READ THE SCRIPTURE: GENESIS 1: 27-28
And God created man in his image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.
Genesis 1:27
What the world has forgotten and is looking for and trying to find in vain, what all psychology courses are hoping to find, what every program of personal improvement is trying to do, is this lost secret of how man was supposed to work . It has been lost from God’s likeness. That is why humans can create, but everything they create has a tendency to evil. That is why they can communicate, but not only communicate the truth and beauty, but also lust, hatred, filth and death. That is the reason why, although they still know moral values, they deny and rationalize them to exalt evil.
This is where the gospel comes in. Paul teaches us God’s plan to counteract the fall of humanity. In Colossians 3: 9-10 he tells the Christians: “Do not lie to one another, having taken off the old man with his deeds and put on the new. This, according to the image of the one who created it, is being renewed until full knowledge “.
We have the likeness of God that is being restored in humans. The image of God has never been lost, because humans still retain the ability to be like God, but they do not have the ability until Jesus Christ is restored in the human heart. When He enters into it, a process begins that, little by little, through trials and sufferings, pain and disappointments, glory, blessing and the exciting experience of grace, is changing us in order to reproduce in us the similarity of God. Not only do we have the ability to be like God, but we are in fact becoming like Him. Is not this glorious?
Remember that verse in 2 Corinthians in which Paul says: “Therefore, we all, looking with our faces uncovered and reflecting as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are transformed from glory to glory in his very image, by the action of the Spirit of the Lord “(3:18). That is the process that restores the resemblance to God in humans.
There is a wonderful picture in the Old Testament, in the book of Malachi, where he says that God is sitting as a refiner and purifier of silver (3: 2b-3). He puts the silver in the refiner pot and places a very hot bonfire under it. As the silver melts, the slag begins to float to the surface. The silversmith sits down and eliminates it, throwing away the scum as it is released. From time to time he leans over and looks inside the pot. What are you looking for? The reflection of his own image. When he can see his reflection on silver, he knows it is pure.
Does not this explain something to us about life? This is what God is doing with us. Why do we have to go through these disappointments that make us feel defeated, having to experience these tremendous afflictions, these hard tests, these pressures, these tribulations, these temptations, these times of failure, as well as those of joy, blessing, glory and ecstasy in the Lord? What is he doing to us? He is refining the silver until he can see His likeness again.
Father, I thank you for refining me so that you can see Your likeness in me. I submit not only to You, but to the way you are doing it, even though sometimes it is painful.
Application to life
Without the gospel, we search in vain for the lost secret of how man is supposed to act. What image do we have of the way we are being conformed to His image?
