Thoughts swirling in my head...

I wanted to blog about a couple of thoughts that have been swirling around my head. They both are a result of two books that I read while on vacation.

From “Designed for Dignity” by Richard L. Pratt, Jr – the book talks about the verse from Genesis:

“In the original language of Genesis, the expression “made man in our image” meant that God made man “into” his image, much as we would say that a potter makes a lump clay “into” a vase. And so humanity is not in the image of God; we actually are the image of God.”

The author puts two different emphasis on this. The first is “…made in the image of God.” To remind us that we are not God, we are just an images of God which results in humbleness on our side. The second is “…made in the image of God” not of a tree, an animal, etc “Instead, God carefully shaped the first man and woman so that they were in hi likeness. He determined to make us creatures of incomparable value and dignity.” . Which means we are accountable to behave as much like God (who we are an image of) as we can and treat all those around us with the same respect and honor.

The second book “Loving God” by Charles Colson – one piece of the book talked about sin and how we refer to it. Often we say we have conquered sin, resisted sin, overcome sin or gave in to sin, lost to sin, sinned, etc. Making it all about us and sin. But the book stated that we shouldn’t use those terms. When we sin we are disobeying God, when we don’t sin – we are obeying God. Instead of saying I’ve sinned – we should say I’ve disobeyed God. Instead of I’ve overcome sin or resisted sin – I’ve obeyed God. Then it’s about our relationship with God (not with sin), more accountability on us in our relationship with God. When I think of when my kids disobeyed me and how it affects our relationship – it makes me think of how when I disobey (sin) God, how it affects my relationship with Him and those around me. I lose that closeness with Him, being able to draw on His peace, even unable to find comfort in Him. The more I disobey the further from Him I become.

Anyway that’s my thoughts this past week.