Ten Minute Bible Talks Devotional Bible Study - How Are We Created in God's Image? | Torah | Genesis 1:26-30

Episode Date: January 4, 2022

Don't forget to subscribe to the TMBT Newsletter here to grow in your faith this year. How can I be created in God's image if I sin? Is God's creation actually good like he says it is? In today's episode, Tanya looks at God's creation of humans in Genesis 1:26-30 and shares the hope that God's creation has in Jesus. Like this content? Make sure to leave us a rating and share it with others, so others can find it too. Use #asktmbt to connect with us, ask questions, and suggest topics. We'd love to hear from you! To learn more, visit our website and follow us on Facebook, and Twitter @TenMinuteBibleTalks. Your support makes TMBT possible. Your support makes TMBT possible. Ten Minute Bible Talks is a crowd-funded project. Join the TMBTeam to reach more people with the Bible. Give now. Social Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TenMinuteBibleTalks Twitter: https://twitter.com/tmbtpodcast Passages: Genesis 1:26-30

Welcome to 10-minute Bible Talks, where we connect the Bible to your life in the time it takes to get to work. I'm Tanya Wilmeth. I'm Keith Simon. And I'm Patrick Miller. We're exploring stories from the first books of the Bible. Right now, we're in Genesis. Hey, listeners, I'm excited to tell you about a new way to connect with 10-minute Bible talks in the new year. When you sign up for our brand-new 10-minute Bible Talks email newsletter, you're going to get a blessedly short email once a week.

and it's going to have guides on spiritual disciplines, inspiring challenges for you to grow, it's going to give you more background on the passages we cover, and there'll even be quick studies of Hebrew and Greek words. It will be the one email that asks nothing from you but gives you something instead. Each week will be a little different, and you're going to love the variety. So stop what you're doing, click the link in the show notes, and join us in your inbox. Now, let's hop into today's episode. When we were going through the Book of Genesis with our third graders on Sunday mornings,

we told them to close their eyes until they could only see black and see stars, and then use their imaginations, their minds, to create something spectacular. After a minute, they opened their eyes and they were excited and expectant, looking around for markers or clay or paint and paper to put substance to their imaginations. But there were no baskets of art supplies on the table that day. How different God is from us and his ability to create something, everything, out of nothing. In the beginning, when God spoke creation into existence, the earth was dark and shapeless, with no form and no substance.

But the mind of God didn't require some artistic medium to create, nor did he require inspiration to imagine. Eternal, infinite creator, God spoke and there was form. let there be light and there was light and let there be night and there was night. The wonder of God to imagine and speak into existence, that which had no substance or form sets him apart as incomprehensible, infinite, eternal creator. But the grand culmination of its creative work is the most incomprehensible and the most generous of all, when on the sixth day he said, let us make man in our image after our likeness

and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on earth. So God created man in his own image. In the image of God he created him, male and female, he created them. We could travel to all seven wonders of the world and experience the majesty of God's design. We could travel into space and begin to understand the complexity of God's design.

We could travel forward and backward at the speed of sound or light and begin to experience the magnitude of God's design. But none of these created works would even begin to compare to God's most creative work of all, speaking a human into existence. God created and God gave. He gave the most wonderful genetic heritage of all time to his people. He made us in the image of God. created in the image of God, we are unique from all other creation. We are uniquely given the ability to hear his voice. Genesis 1 continues,

And God bless them and God said to them, Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it. Just as God's spoken word penetrated the emptiness and darkness of unformed creation, God's voice penetrates the emptiness and darkness of our human hearts. He doesn't tell us too much or too little, but just what we need to live faithfully with him. And we uniquely bear God's image in the way we were designed to reign. All other living creatures and plants were created to exist for our pleasure and purpose. We are not designed merely to exist, but have been given dignity and purpose in God's design.

And God says about his creation, it is very good. He looked upon them before the fall when Adam and Eve lived in perfect harmony and peace with their creator. But as we know, the fall did come. And in that, the harmony was undone and the lies and the doubt crept in with the serpent. And so we understand what it means to doubt that God's creation is good. We know what it's like to experience deep hurt from another image bearer. We know what it is.

it feels like to ignore God's voice because we don't want to submit to his plans. We know what it's like to hear words of hatred and see ourselves shamed on social media or on texts passed among our friends. We know what it's like to have our image distorted and we are craftsmen at destroying image of others. So where is our hope? Has God penetrated the darkness in union with the Holy Spirit and his son at creation. So he ushered in our new hope with the birth of his son. Our hope as believers then is that we are made a new creation in Christ. All our hope to image God rest on Jesus, who is the perfect image bearer. As he was present at the formation of the universe, he can restore form to our brokenness and bring light into our darkness. We need our creator

to do a creative work in our lives that only he can do. As we draw near to him in his word this year, we need him to shine light in the corners and crevices of our lives where darkness likes to lurk. We need the light of God's word to expose areas of sin that we would rather keep hidden. We need to allow his purpose to give shape and form to the emptiness of our desires and our works.

And we have hope in all of this. Our Creator did not finish his work and step away, but involved himself in every infinite and eternal detail through all of eternity. When you say to your Creator, I want to be guided by your voice, you will have no idea the methods he's cosmically ordained to speak wisdom, truth, and guidance into your soul. When you say to the giver of your life, I want my life to be full of meaning and purpose according to your desires, you will have no. no idea the strategies he's cosmically arranged to make that happen. We don't have the ability or power to create spiritual life in ourselves, but we can ask him to fill our lives with the beauty and wonder of reflecting his glory. We depend on Jesus by grace to fill our lives with assurance and purpose,

living in confidence that we are becoming more and more like him. Thanks for listening. If you want to go deeper, sign up for the TMBT newsletter. You'll get a short email once a week, and it will challenge you to grow, give you interesting backgrounds on today's passage, plus a whole lot more. Click the link in our show notes to sign up and deepen your journey with Jesus.