image on Believing in God

An important aspect of being an image bearer of God is to work and to create value by serving others within our collaborative economic system.

Sometimes, of course, the sense of God with us becomes much more distinct. My oldest brother, J. I. Willard, served for over thirty years as a minister under the blessing of God. But his entry into th...

Heavenly Father, forgive us for delving so much into our own lives that we forget the love and purpose with which you have created us. When we are faced with doubt and despair, help us to turn to you ...

This sense of being made in God’s image calls us all constantly to look for it in others and to do what we can to help them acknowledge it and to realize it by joining in worship. We thereby carry to ...

In sovereign love, you, O God, created the world good And made everyone equally in your image, Male and female, of every race and people, To live as one community. But we rebel against you; we hid...

Leader: Scripture teaches us that there is one good and holy God; that we were created in God’s image, to commit ourselves to Him, to do good works, to reflect His glory, and to know Him as loving Fat...

Prayer of Adoration Good Morning, God: Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Before the world was – you were. Before we were – you knew us. Before we awoke today – you were alert, active ready to meet us her...

Because the Christian God is not a lonely God, but rather a communion of three persons, faith leads human beings into the divine communion. One cannot, however, have a self-enclosed communion with the...

Oh God help me believe the truth about myself no matter how beautiful it is!

Our faith is not a matter of our hearing what Christ said long ago and “trying to carry it out. The real Son of God is at your side. He is beginning to turn you into the same kind of thing as Himself....

Jesus is the image of the invisible God and the firstborn of all creation. You were once sinners, alienated and hostile in mind to God, but you have been reconciled through his body and death. Continu...

Eyes of Faith Verse 17 summarizes the Apostle Paul’s argument in this passage: “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.” Throughou...

When God is seen clothed in flesh, and conversing with men, I make an image of the God whom I see. I do not worship matter, I worship the God of matter, who became matter for my sake, and deigned to i...

Preaching Commentary Plenipotentiary Anyone know what a “plenipotentiary” is? Try that compound Latin word on for size! It is derived from the Latin words plenus “full” and potens “power.” It r...

We are what we love. If we love God, in whose image we were created, we discover ourselves in him and we cannot help being happy: we have already achieved something of the fullness of being for which ...

The whole concept of the “image of God ” is the idea that all men [and woman] have something within them that God injected. .. . And this gives [man] a uniqueness, it gives him worth, it gives him dig...

Faithful and Good God–our Father, Redeemer and Companion. You know all about us–and love us anyhow; nothing we are or do surprises you or puts you off. Therefore, we turn to you with assurance and tru...

Preaching Commentary a brief introduction I would like to start with a rather big question. How do we know that we are, in fact, Christians? We find some direction from Jesus on this subject in Mat...

One of the ways we reflect God's love and bring him glory is to accept each other just as he accepts us. This means we accept others' quirks and look past their faults in order to see a person...

Gracious God, sometimes I am so caught up in my failures, in all the ways I am not like you, that I neglect the deeper truth, the earlier truth of Genesis 1. You have made me, as a human being, in you...

Psalm 8 reminds us, “When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have created; What is man, that you are mindful of him? and the son of man, that you care...

A student of mine, Josiah Brown, oversees the student outreach team. He and some of our students go to youth groups to teach the youth about Christian spiritual formation. They talk about what formati...

Leave the works in one class. Consider one as good as another. Fear God, and be just, as has been said. And then do whatever comes before you. This way all will be well done even though it is no more ...

The more a person loves, the closer he approaches the image of God.

Lord and Father, we confess that we have set our minds not on divine, but on human things. Ignoring your counsel and refusing your call, we have put our own needs and desires first and have leaned on ...

The temptation to sculpt God according to our expectations and presuppositions, to make this God much like another, is strong with us. You see it all down through history: in the Middle Ages it seemed...

In recent decades, many Christians have tried to make sense of the tension between our bodies and spirits by swinging to the opposite pole. Instead of saying, “The body doesn’t matter,” they have said...

To say that I am made in the image of God is to say that love is the reason for my existence, for God is love.

Contemplative prayer . . . neither can nor should be self-contemplation, but [rather] a reverent regard and listening to . . . the Not-me, namely, the Word of God.

The ironic fact is that humanism which began with man's being central eventually had no real meaning for people. On the other hand, if one begins with the Bible's position that man is created ...