The Everyday Prayer

Re:Verse passage – Genesis 1:26–27 (day four)

We often feel a sense of reverence for creation. When we’re standing on the beach watching the ocean roll. When we’re looking up at a starry night sky. When we hike to a marvelous view on a hilltop. We have reverence for it because we know God created it. Every grain of sand and every unknown creature in the depths of the ocean – God created them. It’s right that we would view them with reverence.

Humans, though, were created in a unique way. All of creation brings God glory, but humans were created in God’s image. We uniquely reflect God’s glory unlike anything else in creation.

Yet, we don’t always have that same sense of reverence for ourselves that we do for the rest of creation. There might be moments, when we witness humanity at its best, that we feel a sense of awe for one another. But we’re often deeply unkind to ourselves. We treat our bodies poorly. We let unholy things enter our mind. We starve our spirit from sustenance. We easily treat ourselves irreverently. And we are guilty of treating others the same way.

The more we understand the Imago Dei, the more we will live with reverence for ourselves and those around us. What would change if we lived this way?

Re:Verse passage – Genesis 1:26–27 (day three)

“…let them rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over the cattle and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.”

As far as anyone on earth knows, life on this planet is the only life that exists anywhere, and human life is, therefore, the only intelligent life known to humans in the physical realm. Even if future discoveries confirm that life exists elsewhere, earth is still humanity’s charge. The Bible declares so. And this, then, marks a being as human: the responsibility and act of caring for and stewarding that over which that being has power. Humans have power over all other forms of life. Intelligence and emotional capacity are the engines of that power. We will answer to God for the way we use it.

Re:Verse passage – Genesis 1:26–27 (day two) God created man in His own image…vs. 27a

This has been a seminal passage for me as I have attempted to navigate the calling to worship ministry. The word ‘create’ has much to say to us beyond the one time act of creating. As God created, we who are made in his image, should create. We cannot create out of nothing, as God does, but we can use what he has given us to form, shape, and imagine beyond to the limits of our imaginations (another divine gift). The word has even permeated out leisure, we call it re-creation. Each time we design a building, paint a picture, sing a song, write a poem, work with our hands, etc. we are tapping into the very fabric of God’s creative nature. Our hope, as believers, is to help others see the built-in God-image that is giving them the ability to see beyond the possible. In her book Walking on Water, Madeleine L’Engle says the creative artist bears the ‘wound of transcendence’. They recognize the very art they perform is evidence there is more.

Don’t come to me next Sunday and tell me you can’t sing, or draw, or create. God didn’t make an exception with you. If you have breath, you have a voice. It may not sound like mine, but what would be the fun in that. Use what  you have, in whatever means you have and recognize that each creation bears the distinct mark of its Creator.

For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made, so that they are without excuse. Romans 1:20

Re:Verse passage – John 14:6 (day seven)

Isn’t it amazing how much Jesus speaks to us today? Two thousand years ago, Jesus spoke words that we need to hear in 2024. I AM The Truth. In an era when truth has been deemed relative, Jesus tells us that truth is in fact absolute. It is absolutely Him.

Truth may seem like something we are constantly searching for (especially in an election year). Each person has a version of the truth that is different and may even seem different from yours, but Jesus tells us that if we come to Him, not only will He tell us the truth, but He will give us the Truth to always be with us. This Truth will help us filter out what is false so we see the Truth more clearly.

 I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Helper, that He may be with you forever; that is the Spirit of truth. John 14:16-17

Re:Verse passage – John 14:6 (day six)

“In Christ we see the truest human to ever live.” -Megan Langan

If this is true, and it is, then not only is Jesus the perfect portrait of Imago Dei (Image of God), but he is also a reminder of what he is redeeming. We are not redeemed only to become part of a “greater” reality as disembodied spirits; that is a very pagan idea. Jesus became fully human to redeem our humanity in its entirety, body and soul.  Anything less would be less than human.

Knowing that God is redeeming all of your humanity (all that it means to be human), how does it make you feel? How does it shape thankfulness and hopefulness?

Re:Verse passage – John 14:6 (day five)

In the midst of the uncertainty and confusion of the disciples, Jesus is clear, calm, and collected. He answers their initial question of “How?” with the statement of “Who!”  His answer goes further to show them that He is the source of life. Their life. Our life. We find and see the life we need (and were created for) in Him. Not a process or pattern, but a person. Not rules or religion, but a relationship. The design for us, Imago Dei, points clearly and entirely to Jesus and His life and love. We best find our capacity and capability to be Image Bearers of the Living God in our relationship with Jesus Christ. As we grow (through faith and obedience) in Him, we sense and see exactly what Jesus was describing in John 14.

Re:Verse passage – John 14:6 (day four)

As we consider what it means to be made in the image of God, it’s right that we first understand the God in whose image we’re made. We begin this study by going back to the beginning – but not to Genesis. We’re going to the beginning described in John 1, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” Christ the Son is God’s gift to us, co-eternal with the Father, he is God made manifest in human form that we might know God – his substance, his character, and his love.

In Romans 5 and 1 Corinthians 15, Paul paints a picture of Christ as the true and better Adam. Through Adam came death, but through Christ, the true and better Adam, the firstborn of all creation, came the resurrection of the dead. In him we see the fulfillment of God’s perfect plan. In Christ we see the truest human to ever live.

Because of Christ, 2 Corinthians 3:18 is our reality, “But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as from the Lord, the Spirit.”

May Christ, the true and better Adam, transform you into his likeness. Glory to glory.

Re:Verse passage – John 14:6 (day three)

“Jesus said to him, ‘I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father but through me.’”

This verse might seem at first blush to be a statement from Jesus that he occupies the role of gatekeeper, fervently guarding access to God lest any undeserving ne’er-do-well slip through security and gain proximity to God without proper authorization. What’s actually happening here, though, is that Jesus is removing the barricades that people run into when they wonder about God: am I someone God would love as is? What if God is so removed that he can’t be found? Who am I? How do I know I even matter? To all these pressing questions, Jesus says, “You deeply desire to find acceptance from God. Look at me; take my hand; you’re already there when you do.”

Re:Verse passage – John 14:6 (day two) 

Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father but through Me.”

As we embark on this thirteen week study of the exploration of life, and how we are created to live fully, it is so wise that we begin with the author and perfecter of our faith, Jesus. Jesus, the Word become flesh, who was with the Father at creation when we were spoken into creation, declares for all the he is life. There is no equivocation, no alternate route, no misunderstanding. Jesus is life. C.S. Lewis would refer to passages like this in his Mere Christianity when he states that Jesus is either who he says he is or he is a mad man. There can be no in-between. If we want to fully understand life, and who we were created to be, we must begin with Jesus. No other model will measure to him. As we walk through this summer series, would you consider Jesus as your reference, your guide, and your help in understanding who you were created to be?