OT DAY 5 - We Are Not God, Just God's Image (請按此處收聼廣東話Cantonese podcast click here)

               Today's Reading: Genesis 1:26

** If you would like to learn a simple and good way of Daily Devotion method please read my “Count Down 5” from my Devotion on Fire blog:

http://bishopsilas.blogspot.ca/2009/08/count-down-5-subject-shifting-devotion.html

To use this simple and good way of Daily Devotion method please click this link:

 .Subject Shifting Devotion.pdf

Please click this link to read Genesis 1:26

English(ESV): https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Genesis+1&version=ESV

Chinese: https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Genesis+1&version=CUV

Then God 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 the earth.”
                                                                
神 說 ： 我 們 要 照 著 我 們 的 形 像 、 按 著 我 們 的 樣 式 造 人 ， 使 他 們 管 理 海 裡 的 魚 、 空 中 的 鳥 、 地 上 的 牲 畜 ， 和 全 地 ， 並 地 上 所 爬 的 一 切 昆 蟲 。


Bible Study

     At last we come to the creation of human beings. We are created in God's image. What does that really mean to us? 

Let's take a look at what Professor John Goldingay says (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Goldingay) :

    

     We are created "to hold sway over the fish and the birds and the animals, to 'master' the world…It suggests that the animate world needs strong supervision.  After all, animals attack each other and eat each other.  Genesis assumes that God can hardly have intended that.  The Old Testament's vision is for lions to lie down with lambs (Isaiah 11:6-7), but they are not yet inclined to do so. Although the work of creation is completed by the end of Genesis 1, the world is not yet what God wants it to be.  It is still on the way.  Humanity was created to exercise dominion over the animate world so that it could reach its destiny, to fill the earth so as to bring to completion that process of ordering.  It is in connection with its vocation to get the world under firm control that Genesis speaks of humanity's being made in God's image or as God's likeness…
    Being made in God's image might have made Israelites think of the way Middle Eastern kings sometimes placed statues in different parts of their realm to represent the king to his subjects.  It reminded them of who is king here.  It asserts his authority and reminds them to obey him.  Humanity's being made as God's image would therefore make a neat link with the declaration that humanity is to master the earth.  As God's visible image, humanity represents God in the world in its responsibility to hold sway over the earth's creatures on God's behalf.
   

John Goldingay. Genesis for Everyone. Louisville,KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2010, p.17,19.

      You are in God's image, right?  Do you think your appearance, your words and your witness can remind other people of who Jesus is? How Jesus as your King is there with you?   

Let's have a time to be still and give the Holy Spirit space to speak through the passage we have just read. Offer this time up to Jesus as you listen to him, while listening to "Gabriel's Oboe":  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jmax47l2hLU

Spiritual Journal

    The title I heard from Jesus today is: We Are Not God, Just God's Image

    What I receive from Jesus today is a vivid picture of what's wrong with human beings. 

    The good and blessed thing is that we are in the image of God, so if we allow God speaks into our soul and be able to change and renew our lives to be more and more Christlike, people can see God in us and they will follow our good examples to change.

    The problem is that because we are in the image of God, we all want to be God. Taking God's role to master everyone and everything. We so want to be in control and never want to be controlled by God.

    That's the problem! We are just stewards, servants, not king controlling and lording other people!

    Do you know how to solve this huge problem?   
   

Dear Lord Jesus,

Help us not to take your seat and role as God but be humble to be under your lordship so that people can see you in us.  In Jesus name we pray. Amen.

Please click this link to worship with us -

從心合一

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZJWZQyLzDRQ

10,000 Reasons (Bless the Lord) Matt Redman

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DXDGE_lRI0E

You may choose to follow my other daily blog: 

Daily Devotion on Fire 2(2 years plan -One year New Testament, one year Old Testament): 

http://bishopsilas2.blogspot.ca/

Daily Devotion on Fire (3 years and 3 months plan, one chapter a day to finish reading the whole Bible): 

http://bishopsilas.blogspot.ca/

Break.Build (40 days daily devotion- For Renewal or First Step for new Christians): http://www.breakbuild.blogspot.ca/

Emmanuel330 (40 weeks First Step Bible Study): 

http://emmanuel330.blogspot.ca/

This blog:

Discipler 123 (Daily devotion using N.T. Wright's NT for Everyone as source)

http://discipler123.blogspot.ca/

Rev. Nicky Gumbel's daily devotion: Bible in One Year

http://www.htb.org.uk/bioy