Blueprint - Discovering God's Intended Design 1


The current preaching series in VCF is entitled Blueprint (Discovering God's Intended Design) and will run for 3 weeks.  It will answer the question on what it means to be created in God's image and it's purpose is to help us understand Biblical manhood that result to change in mindset and produce positive impact in relationships, the community and the nation. 
Creation
Genesis 1:26-27
Then God said, “Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.”

So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.

tselem - Hebrew word, meaning shadow, translated as image.  
Imago Dei - image of God

The designer gets to define the purpose of his creation.

Isaiah 43:7
...everyone who is called by my name,  whom I created for my glory, whom I formed and made.

God made us in His image and likeness and manifested in:
  • intellectual - think, reason and leard
  • ethical - distinguish right and wrong, we are accountable for our actions
  • teleological - longing for purpose and responsibility
  • relational - relate to God and others
Distortion
Distortion in this image came about as a result of sin.

Romans 1:21-23 
For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened.  Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like a mortal human being and birds and animals and reptiles.

Redemption
Redemption - the progressive recovery of the image of God in man.

Hebrews 1:3a
The Son is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of his being, sustaining all things by his powerful word. 

Colossians 1:15
The Son is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation.

Romans 8:29
For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers and sisters.

"Only through Christ can we redeem our original image."

Victory Fort, October 9, 2011

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Filipino Friday 3: Reading Habits and Book Formats

Image
Reading Habits and Book Formats . Where and how do you read? Can you read anywhere and everywhere, or do you need a certain place/mood/state of mind to get reading? Do you read more in the morning or at night or any minute that you can? Where and how do you usually read? Are you exclusively for print, or do you go for ebooks more than print? Have you ever tried audiobooks? I am old school.  Even as most books now have digital versions, I still prefer the physical, ink-on-paper variety.  I like holding a real book, flipping the pages and being able to see my progress based on the thickness of read/unread pages.  Somehow, I feel more engaged and focused reading a physical book vs. from a gadget. I very rarely reread books so most of my collection just sit on the shelf after I'm done with them.  I feel it's a waste of precious trees if they are not shared with others.  So I started a Google doc at work where the team can list down their collections and anybod...
Read more

Trivia and Reading

Image
I am currently reading The Happiness Project by Gretchen Rubin and I am inspired.  It’s about the author’s year-long quest to be happier.  It’s purposeful and practical and has lot of tips that I can apply or have started doing. Rubin focused on different areas every month and for May, it was Be Serious About Play.  The author was trying to go back to activities she enjoyed as a child. This led me to also think about a favorite childhood pastime, which was collecting trivia.  The Philippine Daily Inquirer used to run a trivia section by Bong Barrameda and I would religiously cut and paste them onto scratch papers, which I would then collate and read again and again.  Nerd zone! Not only that, I also kept a trivia notebook where I researched and wrote down interesting information like areas of study, capital cities, historical figures, scientists and discoveries, everything!  That was fun for me.  I was about to say they were useless info, ...
Read more

Moonwalking with Einstein by Joshua Foer

Image
There is something to be said for collective recommendations like bestsellers list.  I found this title on such list at Fully Booked, read a few pages and decided to buy it.  I was intrigued by the theme of the book which is memory, specifically, how the author started as a journalist covering the US Memory Championships and ended up as a contender in the finals of the same competition one year later. It claims that with proper training, one's memory can be improved to be at par with the top mental athletes of the world.  Memory training has become an esoteric discipline because we practically do not need to remember a lot these days.  Information is very easy to retrieve from electronic devices and what not.  You just need basic search terms and the Google provides the information you need and more. Photo from Rainy Day Books I have to admit I rely on external memory a lot.  I can recall birthdays of my very close family members but outside of tha...
Read more