Toy Stories: Barbie — Humble vs. Powerful - Tuesday
Today’s Verse
Genesis 1:26-27
Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. (ESV)
One of the things that trips up English speakers learning Spanish for the first time is trying to remember which nouns are masculine and which nouns are feminine. In English, a chair is just a chair and a car is just a car, each existing outside of gender. But in Spanish, like so many other languages, nouns have gender. So a chair is feminine, la silla, and a car is masculine, el carro.
When we learn about the ins and outs of the original languages used in Scripture, prior to its translation into our mother tongue, we see something similar. Often, extra information or layers of meaning rise to the surface with a closer look at the grammar and usage. In Genesis 1:26, God says, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness.” In this passage, image is masculine and likeness is feminine. We can learn from that. Men and women, we were created to be like God in very specific ways.
Women, we have a high calling to demonstrate who God is and what He has done through who we are and what we do. We were made to put on full display some very distinct attributes of the living God. Isn’t that cool?
But there’s a problem. Because of sin, we don’t always actually display those attributes well. In our last series, Scott talked about how the primary temptation of men is to succumb to passivity. On Sunday, he unpacked the primary temptation of women is to take control.
See, one of the problems I have with the way our culture talks to and about women is that it seems to define femininity as a form of counterfeit masculinity. It says, if you imitate the worst behaviors of men, you can get all the things men have always had: power, popularity, influence, money, etc. But that view misses out on the big picture. If that’s all we’re going for, we’ve set the bar way too low.
God invites us into a grander picture, where our very being was created in the likeness of God, to demonstrate attributes of God and honor Him in that way. Men demonstrate unique qualities, and women demonstrate unique qualities. When we seek the Lord, He continues to make us into a new creation. As He renews our hearts, we become more and more reflective of the way He created us to be (2 Corinthians 5:17).
APPLICATION
Our lives are often built with such busyness that we struggle to sit still in the presence of God, get to know Him, and actually hear what He has to say. This week, grab your Bible, a journal, and set aside one hour to walk through the prayer cycle. You’ll go through 12 different ways the Bible teaches us to pray, and by the end, I promise that spending an hour in prayer won’t feel nearly as intimidating anymore.
Need something to read? Try Genesis 1, 2 Corinthians 5:17, or Proverbs 31:10-31.
PRAYER
Lord, as You make me into a new creation, let any notions of counterfeit womanhood pass away with my old self. In its place, reveal in me the ways You have made me in Your likeness that I might seek to know You all the more. Amen.
