Christianity

Christianity tells us that we are created in the image of God. The human spirit, the soul, the essence of our humanity is made to be like the nature of God. Our likeness to God is the likeness of a child to its parent. Your children are a living part of you; you have generated them from your own self. They are like you because they contain the same genetic structure. We are like God because he gave birth to our being, our spirit. He breathed his own life into us. Our living center is none other than the same substance as the living center of God himself.

And we have been placed in this world of beauty, wonder, and challenge, for the purpose of loving God and receiving His love in return. We are meant to be the companions of God.

But we have fallen from that purpose; we have turned away to chase after our own desires. We have chosen to go against our own divine nature; we have degraded our spirits; we have damaged our world; we have betrayed our trust, we have broken our relationship with Him; we have lost our way. And in our lostness, we have brought suffering and pain, fear and death into the world.

Yet God’s love cannot abandon us here. Again and again he has reached out to show us the way back, the way home to consciously living with Him. Yet we always seem to turn away again. So once more he reaches out. Until he finally came himself to redeem our souls, to restore in our hearts the image of God.

When we take the hand of Jesus and begin to follow him, he will lead us back to the place where we can again live as children of God in God’s house. It is a long path, but holding onto him, he will make our destination certain.