Image Bearers

As a parent, it seems that there were and still are times that the weight of being a parent and all of its responsibilities are very heavy. At times, the breadth of all our daughters needed to learn seemed almost overwhelming and there did not seem to be enough time with them under our roof for me to teach them all they needed to learn. I don’t know if there is any parent that ever feels like they taught their children everything they could have. There are so many ways that we can teach them, but it is most usually through our words and our actions that we teach them the most.

More is caught than taught

This phrase has been around for a long time, and is so true when we watch other people’s children. I have seen insecure moms produce insecure children. When we listen to how the mom talks, and then we listen to how the children talk-it sounds the same.  The mom who is always putting herself down produces a child that is always putting herself down. The same could be said for the dad who always talks about cars and sports. What is talked about by the parents is often what the children spend a lot of their time talking about. What the parents value, the children also value.

It is important as a parent to help our children have a proper view of themselves. Who they are? Where do they get their identity? How should this identity affect who they are and how should this affect their lives?

The Image of God

It is important to start out by understanding and teaching our children that we are all made in the image of God.

“So God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him,                            male and female He created them” (Gen. 1:27).

In order to teach them about being made in the image of God, we must first teach them about who God is. We see God in Genesis 1 as creative. God created the world out of nothing. Every molecule that ever was and is was created by God. The intricacies of the planets, the stars, and the sun all shout the creativity of God. The cycle of weather, the change of seasons, and gravity all point to the creativity and the matchless intellect of our God. The workings of human bodies have not yet been fully grasped by our human intellect and yet God made all of this out of nothing. There was nothing to model His creation after, He created it out of nothing. (ex nihilo).

But God did have a model for mankind, and that was Himself. God made mankind in “His image.” Since God is creative, we as human beings are also creative. A dog cannot paint a picture as magnificently as Leonardo da Vinci. Nor can a monkey understand how electricity works and make the light bulb like Thomas Edison. Mankind is creative and intellectual. We can learn. We can love. We can reason.

We get these magnificent qualities because we are made in the image of God.

Who are we?

As parents it is important that we appreciate who we are: made in God’s image. We are made with creativity, language, intellect, reason, ability to love, and the ability to learn. As parents, we must teach our children the value of being made in God’s image. Not only must we appreciate this value, we must understand that with this value of being God’s image bearers, we have an unmistakable identity.

Our Identity

Oftentimes on Facebook, my oldest daughter gets mistakenly tagged as me. When she has done a fun activity with her friends and they post pictures, Facebook will inadvertently tag me in the photo rather than her. There must be enough similarities in our face structure for Facebook to think that I am her. She has also been asked, “Are you Danna’s daughter?” by someone she does not know. We look that much alike.

So it is with us as humans. We are made in the image of God. No matter how many people want to claim to be atheist or believe that God has nothing to do with their lives, they cannot get away from the fact that they are made in the image of God and His image is stamped all over them.

Do we embrace this identity of being image bearers of our God? Do we take pride in being image bearers? Do our children value this fact and understand the impact it needs to make on their lives? Do we as parents value this fact and understand the impact it needs to make on our lives?