Tag Archives: in the beginning

In The Beginning – God and Man

God’s Purpose for Man

Let’s talk a little about what happened in the beginning, and more importantly, to show how what happened in the beginning has something to do with you. In the beginning there was the earth, the plants, the animals and man. What is all this for? Why are we here? These are some universal questions. In the beginning God had a purpose in mind for all things. What is this purpose, and what does it have to do with you?  We need to look at the very beginning of the Bible, where God’s purpose for man is revealed. God’s purpose for us can be summarized in two words; image and dominion. In the beginning of the Bible, the beginning of the record, right in the first chapter, God said, “Let Us make man in Our image after Our likeness, and let him have dominion over the fish in the sea, the cattle, the birds and the whole earth.” So we have those two key words that describe why God made man.  Let’s write this on the board. First of all we have the word, “image”. Secondly, we have the word, “dominion”. This verse in the beginning of the Bible reveals to us why God created man.  We were made in the image of God and we were created to have dominion. What do these two words mean? First of all we have the word, “image”. What does image mean? Image is like a photograph. If you look at a photograph of a tree you see the color, the form and the shape of the tree. You could say the photograph expresses or represents the tree. So, image means to express. We were created in the image of God so we could express God.  Let’s write this down—to express God.  Then “dominion” means to represent God. So there you have it.  We are to express God and represent God. These two words at the beginning of the Bible reveal to us why God created man.  He created us in His Image to express Him, and He created us to have dominion or to represent Him.

This is taken from a Bible study, some of these study video’s are on  Drew’s YouTube channel.

Why did God Create Man?

Why did God Create Man

In the beginning there was the earth, plants, animals and there was man. What is all this for and why are we here?  These are some universal questions. In the beginning God had a purpose in mind for all things, but what is this purpose and what does this have to do with us? When we look at the beginning of the Bible, the first book of the Bible and the first chapter of the Bible the reason why God created man is laid out for us. It says, there, that God created man in His image and in His likeness, and He wanted man to have dominion over the fish, the cattle, the birds, over the whole earth and over the creeping things. In that passage the two key words are “image” and “dominion”. These two words describe the reason why God created you and created me—imagine and dominion.

Now what do these two words mean? An image is like a photograph. If I have a photograph of a tree, you see an image of the tree; you see the attributes of the tree. For instance, most trees are green, so you see green. You see the form of the branches, the shape of the leaves and so on. Well, in the same way, you and I were created in the image of God that we might express the attributes of God.  For instance, a tree is green, so a photograph of a tree expresses that attribute, the color green. You and I were created in the image of God. Now one attribute of God is love. Others include joy, peace, patience, honesty, telling the truth and so on.  These are all attributes of God.  When we express these attributes we express God’s nature, and this is why you and I were created.

Now let’s break this down a little bit.  You and I were made in the image of God to express God, to express what God is. One of God’s attributes is love. When you read the whole Bible, from beginning to end, you discover how God’s love is unconditional.  But yet, a lot of times our human love that we try to live with is conditional. It is fickle. One day we like people, and the next day we are grumpy. Some people we like; some people we don’t like. Yet God’s love is not this way. For instance, even we Christians (I am a born-again Christian) have a problem. Sometimes we only like people who are Christians but we don’t like people who are not Christians.  We think they need to join our club, so to speak, or be like exactly like us. But yet when you read the Bible you find out that God loves every single human being, even the ones who are not Christian. How do you like that?  Then, even among Christians there is a failure to love.  Brand X Christians don’t like Brand Y Christians?  Why?  Because they do not believe exactly like I do, or they don’t practice things exactly the way I do.  Of course the Brand X Christian have their Bible verses to prove that what they are doing is the best.  But you see that is not the expression of God.  We were created to express God, and we were created to represent God on this earth. When we express what God I s, which is love, unconditional love, which means we accept anybody, under any condition. When we do that, we express God Himself.

So let’s go back to why God created man. God created us in His image to express Him.  Secondly God created man to have dominion because God wanted man to represent Him on this earth. I hope you can remember those two words:  image and dominion, because these two words describe the reason why God created man.