{"id":62,"date":"2021-02-12T09:26:26","date_gmt":"2021-02-12T01:26:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.friendshipwaylife.org\/?p=62"},"modified":"2021-02-12T09:26:26","modified_gmt":"2021-02-12T01:26:26","slug":"god-is-making-man-in-his-image-according-to-his-likeness","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/friendshipwaylife.org\/index.php\/2021\/02\/12\/god-is-making-man-in-his-image-according-to-his-likeness\/","title":{"rendered":"God is making Man in his image according to his likeness"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<ol type=\"1\" start=\"1\"><li>God declares his intention to make man in his image according to his likeness (Genesis 1:26).<ul><li>To become like God, man should develop in him the character of God.<\/li><li>To develop the character or image of God, man will be subjected to tests and trials.<\/li><\/ul><\/li><\/ol>\n\n\n\n<ol start=\"2\"><li>God anticipates that physical man could succumb to the Devil\u2019s temptation and sin. The penalty of sin is death. Should man sin, man would die. Unless there is a way for man to escape the penalty of death, his creation is thwarted. But God should succeed.<ul><li>God and the Lamb decided that should man sin, he should be saved from death (Revelation 13:8).<\/li><\/ul><ul><li>The Lamb\u2019s death would be sufficient to pay the death penalty of mankind.<\/li><\/ul><\/li><\/ol>\n\n\n\n<ol start=\"3\"><li>Genesis 2:7 And the&nbsp;Lord&nbsp;God formed man&nbsp;<em>of<\/em>&nbsp;the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being.<ul><li>The first phase of man\u2019s creation shows that he is made of dust (Gen. 1:27) with the potential to become immortal or merely a mortal (Gen. 2:16-17). What he will become depends on his exercise of his freedom to choose.<\/li><\/ul><ul><li>Man chose to do that which God had forbidden him (Gen. 3:1-6) and his death became a certainty as God warned him previously (Gen. 2:16-17).<\/li><\/ul><ul><li>Man was banished form the Garden and the 2<sup>nd<\/sup> phase of his creation, the spiritual or character development phase, was stalled until he is cleansed of his spot or wrinkle. God being a perfectionist wants his creation to be spotless.<\/li><\/ul><\/li><\/ol>\n\n\n\n<ol start=\"4\"><li>To implement the salvation plan, the Word became flesh (John 1:14).<ul><li>When the hour of his slaying became imminent, the human Jesus struggled as to whether or not to lay down his life (Luke 22:41-44).<\/li><\/ul><ul><li>Jesus overcame and decided to lay down his life (John 10:15).<\/li><\/ul><ul><li>Jesus died and declared, shortly before he breathed his last, that as to man\u2019s salvation, as far as God and Jesus Christ are concerned, \u201cIt is finished!\u201d (John 19:30).<\/li><\/ul><\/li><\/ol>\n\n\n\n<ol start=\"5\"><li>Man, \u201cFor God so loved the world that He gave his only begotten Son\u201d (John 3:16), was excused from dying for his sin. Man was saved from dying.<ul><li>To keep and maintain his being saved, man has to believe \u201cin Him\u201d, Jesus (John 3:16).<\/li><\/ul><ul><li>If man does not believe \u201cin Him\u201d, Jesus, he will perish (John 3:16).<\/li><\/ul><\/li><\/ol>\n\n\n\n<ol start=\"6\"><li>Having been freed from the death penalty and cleansed by Jesus\u2019 blood, the saved man could now proceed to the character or godly image (Romans 8:29, Colossians 3:10, 2 Corinthians 3:18) development process.<ul><li>Man is gifted with the Holy Spirit as a guarantee of eternal life (2 Corinthians 1:22) for which he becomes Christ\u2019s (Romans 8:9), a Christian.<\/li><\/ul><ul><li>The Christian is in effect, \u201ca new creation\u201d (2 Corinthians 5:17).<\/li><\/ul><ul><li>Jesus instructs Christians to \u201cdo business till I come\u201d (Luke 19:13).<\/li><\/ul><ul><li>This \u201cbusiness\u201d or \u201cworks\u201d, Jesus makes specific as his commandment to \u201clove&nbsp;one&nbsp;another&nbsp;as&nbsp;I&nbsp;have&nbsp;loved&nbsp;you\u201d (John 13:34, 15:12).<\/li><\/ul><ul><li>Paul counsels Christians to have the mind of Christ (Philippians 2:5), that we should put off our old man and to put on the new man (Ephesians 4:22-24, Colossians 3:8-10, 12-14), etc.<\/li><\/ul><ul><li>To be able to produce good works, the Christian would simply set aside his ego and let Jesus live in him to live his life in him (Galatians 2:20).<\/li><\/ul><ul><li>&nbsp;God is love (1 John 4:16). God\u2019s image and the \u201cimage of His Son\u201d (Romans 8:29) is love \u201cfor God is love\u201d (1 John 4:8).<\/li><\/ul><\/li><\/ol>\n\n\n\n<ol start=\"7\"><li>At Jesus\u2019 return there will be a \u201cperformance evaluation\u201d of each Christian (Luke 19:15).<ul><li>The Christian who had developed God\u2019s image by \u201cworks\u201d enters the KOG by being changed to spirit to become immortal (1 Corinthians 15:51-53) \u201clike Him\u201d (1 John 3:2). &nbsp;<\/li><\/ul><ul><li>The Christian who chose to be barren by not using the power of the Holy Spirit previously gifted him is disqualified to be changed to spirit and remains a mortal and will be condemned (John 5:28-29).<\/li><\/ul><ul><li>The Holy Spirit he kept \u201cin a handkerchief\u201d (Luke 19:20) unutilized, would be taken back from him (Luke 19:26). &nbsp;<\/li><\/ul><\/li><\/ol>\n\n\n\n<p>When God finishes his creating man in his image according to his likeness, man will be changed to an immortal spirit (1 Corinthians 15:51-53). \u201cWe shall be like Him\u201d (1 John 3:2), spirits, as \u201cGod is Spirit\u201d (John 4:24).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>As a being which is already \u201clike\u201d God, man\u2019s creation ends. Man\u2019s life, the real LIFE, begins!\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>God declares his intention to make man in his image according to his likeness (Genesis 1:26). To become like God, man should develop in him the character of God. To develop the character or image of God, man will be subjected to tests and trials. God anticipates that physical man could succumb to the Devil\u2019s&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/friendshipwaylife.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/friendshipwaylife.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/friendshipwaylife.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/friendshipwaylife.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/friendshipwaylife.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=62"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/friendshipwaylife.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/friendshipwaylife.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=62"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/friendshipwaylife.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=62"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/friendshipwaylife.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=62"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}