Reflecting God’s Nature

“God spoke: “Let us make human beings in our image, make them reflecting our nature So they can be responsible for the fish in the sea, the birds in the air, the cattle, And, yes, Earth itself, and every animal that moves on the face of Earth.” God created human beings; he created them godlike, Reflecting God’s nature. He created them male and female.” (Genesis 1:26–27, The Message)

There are two ways humans can reflect God’s nature. First, we can reflect God’s nature by the way we care for nature. God teaches us in Genesis that we are “responsible” for creation. God gave us the job of taking care of the natural world. In the original creation account (before humans were tempted to sin and do wrong), we were called to live in harmony with nature. Originally, we were given vegetables and fruits to eat. We were originally designed to be vegetarians. So our reflecting God’s nature involved taking care of creation. We cared for the animal kingdom as well as the human race.

Second, we can reflect God’s nature in the way we were created. The idea that humans have gender (male and female) reflects the diversity of God. The fact that God created us makes us in the image of God. We were created to be His children. So as humans, we automatically reflect in some way the fact that God created us. Just as children reflect physically the nature of their parents, as humans we reflect in physical fashion the fact that God is our Father. Being in the image of God, as His children, we reflect in some way His characteristics: love, goodness, compassion, faith, and hope. We are called us to reflect God’s nature in positive ways. As God’s children, we reflect God’s goodness by following God and His ways.

Photo by Hanny Naibaho on Unsplash