“You and I, in order to image God, need to be continually made more and more like Jesus.” -Pastor Mark
I was listening to an old sermon by Pastor Mark in which he said that. Specifically, it was the Image sermon from the Doctrine series. If you haven’t heard it, you should check it out here. It’s a great sermon.
Anyway, when he said that, it really struck me. After all, who doesn’t want to be like God, or at least a god? Isn’t that ultimately what every sin is about? In the end, it’s us trying to be god*.
Hey now, wait – I know the first commandment! Exodus 20:3 tells us to have no other gods. I am not my own god! Yeah, I hear you. I wouldn’t call myself a god either. If anyone knows I’m not a perfect, supreme, and sovereign being, it’s me. But even if I don’t say it with my words, what am I doing every time I disobey? Am I not saying, “Yeah, I know you told me not to do this God, but I know better than you do what’s good for my life.” And who ultimately has supreme authority? Whatever you answer, that is your god. And it certainly sounds like in my disobedience the answer has two thumbs (THIS GUY!).
So we’re all trying to be our own gods. Come, let us create God in our own image that we may worship ourselves. In the words of Voltaire, “If God has created us in His image, we have more than returned the compliment.”
But we can create something great, right? I wonder if Stephen Hawking has anything to say about that…
“I think computer viruses should count as life. I think it says something about human nature that the only form of life we have created so far is purely destructive. We’ve created life in our own image.
*Throughout this post, I will refer to the deity which we strive to be with a lowercase g (“god”) because we are obviously not trying to be the one true and living God by being a god unto ourselves.”
Good call. Nothing that we do as an act of making ourselves god is ever good. We can never become a god. We can only become like God by being conformed to the image of Christ, and only as an act of glorifying God. And that comes only from relationship to him. It’s sometimes a long and painful process, but it’s worth it.
