Highlights

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.” 

This verse is the summit of God’s creative work, when he fashioned Adam and Eve, made exclusively in  his image, and He pronounced it as very good!  You and I are made in God’s image! This bold claim shook the ancient world and is a revolutionary and powerful idea even today. 

After God had created the fish, birds, and animals, He saw it was good, but wasn’t quite finished. He  wanted to create something more wonderful and unique to be the finale to his creation. So, he created  human beings, a unique piece of creation designed to be set apart from the rest of the animal world.  Mankind was given the greatest privilege of all, to be a special expression of God’s own divine nature.  This was God’s blessing on Adam and Eve, to rule over the earth on behalf of God who is our ultimate  ruler and King. (Psalm 8:4-8) 

God did not create to complete something lacking in Him, but he did so out of the fullness and overflow  of His love. God is His own community (One God-3 Persons) self-existent and self-sufficient, a Triune  God who from all eternity is a being in fellowship. He created us humankind as “male and female” further  indicating that we are made for relationships. We mirror God as being in fellowship, meaning that God  made us different so that we could have person-to-person relationships with each other. 

We were created for love relationships, for the vertical love of God and the horizontal love with our  fellow humans! The first order of priority is vertical, our relationship with the One who made us for  himself. The second is our investment in horizontal relationships with those around us. So here is  something to seriously think about…. If everything in life seems to be going well, but our primary  relationships (vertical & horizontal) are chaotic then what does the rest matter? To be made in God’s  image is to put my time and energy into loving God and others. 
If being created in God’s image means we were made for relationships, how does this impact our  priorities or how we measure success in life?