So God created man in his own image. In the image of God, he created him. Male and female, he created them.
– Genesis 1:27
Oh, so much beauty in this one verse from the beginning of the Bible that defines who we are as men and women made in the image of God. So let’s just think about that phrase, made in the image of God. Unlike anything else in all creation, you just think about God’s beauty and canyons and rivers and oceans and stars and mountains and valleys and deserts and animals and plants and so many different beautiful pictures of God’s glory and creation. But there’s nothing else like you and me created with the mental, emotional, relational faculties to be able to know God and talk with God, and hear from God and walk with God.
Genesis 1:27 reminds us we were made for a relationship with God.
You are made for relationship with God himself unlike anything else in all creation. That alone defines you with such dignity, honor, beauty, and glory. You are made to know God, to talk with God, to listen to God, to walk with God, to enjoy God. So I encourage you today, live for what you’re made for live knowing God today just possible through Jesus, what he did on the cross for us, and live walking with God today, which is possible because for all who trust in Jesus, he puts his Spirit inside of us.
Talk with God today, all day long. Pray continually. Not because you’re supposed to, you have to or it’s time to, but because you’re in relationship with God, read his Word today, like soak it in. Not like you’re checking off a box, but like you’re reflecting on the words of the one you know and love.
Oh, enjoy and walk with God as a man or woman, a man in his image. And it’s at this point, I just grieve over how, at least in the culture where I live, there’s such confusion and denial of the beauty of this verse that God has made us male and female. There’s an adversary who’s wreaking havoc by causing people, tempting people to not trust God in the way he has made us, to deny the goodness of God in the way he has made us.
Genesis 1:27 reminds us of the reality of being created as male or female.
And I want to encourage you to trust in the way God has made you as a male or as a female, and to see the beauty God has designed for you in the way he made you. And to not give in to the temptations of this world, to not trust in the God who loves you, who made you, who designed you fearfully and wonderfully in his image to enjoy life with him.
Oh God, we praise you for making us this way, for making us with the capacity to know you, to talk with you right now, to be led by your Spirit, to walk with you in relationship with you. God, we pray that you would help us to live in this to the fall. Lord, please keep us from ignoring you or from turning relationship with you into just more mechanical transactions where we’re kind of starting a meal with praying, but not even thinking about who we’re talking to or reading our Bible here and there just to kind of check off a box.
God, may it not be so. Help us to experience the wonder of walking with you and worshiping you and enjoying you and exalting you as men and women made in your image. And God, we pray that you would help us to trust in who you’ve made us to be and to encourage others and who you’ve made them to be as beautiful women, dignified men in your image. Oh God, forgive us for how we are turning aside in so many cultures including my own, from your word that is so clear about how you made us and who you made us to be.
Prayer for the Turi People
And God, we pray for people today who are separated from relationship with you and have never heard about Jesus and how they can be reconciled to you. God, we pray for the Turi people of Bangladesh and India. God, we pray that this Hindu people group would be reached with the good news of your love for them and your desire to restore them to relationship with you through Jesus. Knowing every single Turi man, woman, boy, girl has been made in your image, God, we pray that they would be redeemed by your son. Please may it be so. We pray all these things according to your Word in Genesis 1:27. In the name of Jesus, amen.
David Platt serves as a Lead Pastor for McLean Bible Church. He is also the Founder and Chairman of Radical, an organization that helps people follow Jesus and make him known in their neighborhood and all nations.
David received his B.A. from the University of Georgia and M.Div., Th.M., and Ph.D. from New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary. Some of his published works include Radical, Radical Together, Follow Me, Counter Culture, Something Needs to Change, and Don’t Hold Back.
He lives in the Washington, D.C. metro area with his wife and children.
