Genesis 2:7
The Lord God formed the man from the dust of the ground and breathed into
his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being.
NIV
In the name of the Creator Spirit, amen.
Dear man, you were created in the image of God. You were divine. The
Lord almighty, the eternal one took special care in creating you. You
are different from all other creatures. You were the reflection of the
Holy One, the Immortal, the source and cause of all things. You were
formed as the Crown of His creation, sharing in the qualities of God,
falling short of Him only in essence.
You who were Godlike lost everything because you thought you could be
more Godlike. To what depth have you fallen? Where is your holiness?
Where is your immortality? Where is your creative ability? All your
thoughts of creativity center around fulfilling your own evil passions.
The degree to which you will go to find new ways to feed your perverse
desires is endless. From dust you came and, although He breathed His
Holy Spirit into you and gave you life, you will return to dust. No
glory for you. No eternal life belongs to your essence anymore. It has
been lost and destroyed, poisoned by sin. Dare we suggest that there
could be some holiness that remains in you? With genocide, ethnic
cleansing, rape, murder, lies, theft, child abuse, pornography, divorce,
agnosticism, and atheism there is no holiness left in you. Do you treat
your brothers as if they had the image of God? What is left for you
except death and destruction?
Yet, somewhere deep in the mind of God there was compassion for you, and
a second chance. Why you and not the fallen angels? What is it about
you that God would go to such great pains to fulfill what you could not,
and pay the price that was beyond your comprehension? The very fact that
we can only make wild guesses at this emphasizes how far we fell when our
first parents sinned. It has nothing to do with anything in you. It has
everything to do with God.
So the Creator Spirit comes in the Holy Word of God and in the Holy
Sacraments. He comes and re-creates what was destroyed. Man, made again
in the image of the Holy God! Never perfect in this life, but refined in
the furnace of daily experience so that when our Savior comes again we
will be pulled from the furnace like gold from the smelter. We will be
found bearing the holy, eternal, creative image of God. Dust you are,
but Godlike your shall be. The seed has been planted and there is life.
The image grows in clarity until it is fully restored at the judgment.
This is happening to you now as the Holy Spirit continues to work through
the Word and sacraments. May He bless you and make you all that you can
be! Amen.
Prayer:
Creator Spirit, You have given us life in our physical birth, You give us
eternal life through baptism and the Gospel; continue to work in us
through the Word and sacraments so that our imperfections grow less each
day. Finally, restore Your image in us completely so that we may live
with You in Paradise forever, amen.
The next devotion is scheduled for Monday. The Lord bless you as you
come together as one body tomorrow.