The Image Engraved In You
3 Reflections
If God is spirit, and we are created in the image and likeness of God, then we are intentionally designed by God to be spiritual beings.Scripture often describes spirit as wind or breath. Wind has no boundary lines. Breath doesn’t come out as a solid object. It fills space. When you exhale into the air around you, you can’t tell where “your breath” ends and the atmosphere begins. That’s the nature of spirit—it mingles. It joins. That’s a window into what bearing the image of God means: you were created with the capacity for union with Him.
Jesus once held up a coin and asked, “Whose image is this?” The coin bore Caesar’s image. Jesus’ point was simple: the object bears the image of its owner. In the same way, you bear God’s image. Which means you belong to God. You don’t belong to your past, your mistakes, your wounds, your career, your ambitions, or even your own plans. You are stamped. Marked. Engraved with God. No other part of creation carries that signature. The image marks ownership. You were made for God.
We can belong to God… and still live as if we don’t. We may believe in Him, even serve Him, and still relate to Him as if He’s external: an advisor, a rescuer, an occasional visitor. But the promise of the new covenant isn’t that Jesus saves us, then waits in heaven for our arrival one day. Union is the promise of salvation. Not just forgiveness on paper, but intimate fellowship in reality. Not God near you, but God in you. That’s the hope of glory.
“What is created always reflects something of the Creator… they long to reflect something of the Creator’s glory through their lives of obedience and faith… this sense of wonder makes created people worshipers.”- D.S. Briscoe
2 Scriptures
“God is spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth.”
— John 4:24
“But he who is joined to the Lord is one spirit with Him.”
— 1 Corinthians 6:17
1 Action
Ask yourself: If my life is a coin, whose image would my choices say it bears?
Pick one daily pattern that currently carries your imprint (self-protection, control, distraction, compromise). Lay it down.
Replace it with one new pattern that carries His imprint—obedience even when you don’t understand, faith in the face of difficulty, hope, joy, forgiveness extended to those who hurt you, and love.
And what’s one act of obedience you’ve been postponing that you can step into this week that shows those around you Who you belong to?
Grace and peace,
NEIL
