CREATED //

 

Genesis 1:27 So God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.

Created – naseh – awsaw. – ‘Make’, as in create – to originate a species.

Sin, darkness and Satan have colluded to deeply blur this image of God in humankind. When we receive Christ, that image is recaptured. We are born again into the Father’s image. We are not just ‘created’. We are born of God. We receive the spiritual genetics of the Father when we are born from above. The traits of God manifest in our re-creation. When people meet us they should be feeling like they are experiencing reflections of God in the Earth. We do what God would do; we behave like Jesus Christ would behave. Our character reflects His.

Calvin stated, ‘The image of God is the complete excellence of human nature’.

The Bible calls us the image and glory of God.

1 Corinthians 11:7 For a man indeed ought not to cover his head, since he is the image and glory of God;

When we live in the ‘new man’, we live in the image of God.

There is a false righteousness and a false holiness. Neither reflects the image of God. The new nature reflects perfectly the true righteousness and the true holiness of the Father. This image we have been ‘made in’, is not just a distant reflection of the Almighty. Our intrinsic nature echoes the substance of God Himself.

FREE //

Deuteronomy 28:68 And the LORD will take you back to Egypt in ships, by the way of which I said to you, ‘You shall never see it again.’ And there you shall be offered for sale to your enemies as male and female slaves, but no one will buy you.

Under the curse you would be taken back to places you never wanted to return to. Your whole life would seem to go backwards, and there you would try to at least eke out a living – but no one would want you or employ you. The final and most terrible thing would be that you were rejected and not wanted by anybody.

But now, in Christ, under the blessing of God, you progress. You move forward. You will not be trying to sell yourself to others to make some money. Instead you will be employing all sorts of people. You will be the one calling the shots.

If Jesus has died to remove the curse then that is what has happened. The curse has been removed.

For a curse to be effective it must have grounds for resting on someone’s life. Once the blood of Christ has washed all sins from our soul, there remains no more ground for any curse whatsoever to gain access to our world.

Proverbs 26:2 Like a flitting sparrow, like a flying swallow, So a curse without cause shall not alight.

 This means that all those curses have been removed and reversed, so that under the blessing of God, instead of curses, blessings shower down on our lives in all these same areas.

SAME POWER //

Luke 24:49 Behold, I send the Promise of My Father upon you; but tarry in the city of Jerusalem until you are endued with power from on high.

When the Holy Spirit becomes part of our lives we are filled with the same power that created the entire universe. Jesus knew the job we had been given was beyond our own strength and so He commanded the disciples to make sure they received power from on high before they attempted to fulfill His plan. After ten days of waiting in the Upper Room, the disciples were baptised in the power of the Holy Spirit on the Day of Pentecost (Acts 2). From that point those early disciples were completely transformed men and women.

The most dramatic turnaround was Peter, who just days before was a discouraged, dejected fisherman who felt he had completely failed Christ, having denied him three times. Yet, after being baptised in the Holy Spirit he fearlessly stands before a crowd of devoted religious people proclaiming Christ, bringing three thousand of them to Christ in a moment! All the disciples literally turned the world upside down with their preaching, miracles and healings after they had been baptised in the power of the Spirit. This power is the same that Samson used to defeat hundreds of warriors single handedly. This is the same power that healed the sick through Jesus. This is the same power that raised Jesus Christ from the dead after three days. This exact same power dwells inside each of us. We can never again admit to being powerless in the face of trouble. Jesus promised the power of the Spirit to all those that hunger for Him. God will satisfy our hunger for Him with the infilling of the Holy Spirit.