Like Him (Lent 5, 2023)

1 John 3:1 See what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are!

We have been created to be like God so much so that He’d call us His children.

Focus for Lent: As a rational and relational Being, God created mankind to be like Him, a reflection of His glory.

Questions for further thought

Would the Image of God still have something relational about it since at the time of Adam’s creation, there was no Eve?

Adam could relate to God alone. But had God proclaimed Adam complete yet?

Why did God say the He’d create them male and female? What about the blessings to follow require it?

Prayer: Father God, on this side of the fall of man with our being incapable of perfectly displaying Your Image, help us to see that the man in the mirror still has a hint of it. So do people we don’t particularly like. Forgive us, Lord, for disliking anyone made in Your Image. Help us to be transformed into Your likeness through obedience and to press on toward holiness and godly living. We praise You that when Jesus returns, we will be like Him. Thank You for the miracle of rescue, that You planned before the creation of the world. Forgive us, Lord, for the things we do that grieve You and help us to treasure and display Your Image every day and always. Amen.

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If you’re already signed up on my Home Page sidebar to receive posts, you’ll get the 2023 Lent Devotionals automatically. Or you can “Like” Seminary Gal on Facebook and they’ll be delivered to your Facebook news feed. If you haven’t signed up, today is a great day to do so. Advent and Lenten devotionals remain among my most popular offerings. You don’t want to miss this encounter with God to prepare your heart for Easter! Understanding that prior years’ devotionals continue to minister, you may want to have access to a full series ahead of time:

Lent 2013 looked at The Letter to the Romans: Paul’s Masterpiece to reclaim foundations of our Christian heritage and began February 13, 2013.
A very special and ever popular offering was Lent 2014’s Be Still and Know that I AM God which can be obtained through the archives beginning in March 2014.
Lent 2015 began on February 18, 2015 with a series entitled With Christ in the Upper Room: Final Preparations. We explored what is often called “The Upper Room Discourse” found in John chapters 13-17.
ReKindle, the Lent 2016 series, began on February 10, 2016 and encouraged us to rekindle our spiritual lives.
Light: There’s Nothing Like It was the 2017 Lent series and explored this metaphor often used to portray Christ. It is archived beginning March 1, 2017.
Lent 2018, we explored the questions of Pi and Chi (the Greek letter beginning the word Christos, which means Christ, Messiah, the Anointed One). We asked and answered the questions “Why?” from the movie Life of Pi as we discovered the uniqueness of Jesus Christ in a world of many faiths.
Lent 2019 gave us a deeper window into Easter “More to the Easter Story” since we miss so much when we rely only on a superficial understanding of the work of Christ. These devotionals are archived beginning March 6, 2019.
Our Lent 2020 devotional series offered prayer points surrounding “Be Thou My Vision” and were aimed at helping us to see God for who He is. The full set of devotionals are archived beginning February 26, 2020.
The theme for 2021 Lent Devotionals was how to live between two worlds while waiting for Christ’s return. Into the gap between the City of Man and its fixation upon sin and the City of God with its demand for holiness, two words minister peace: But God. Praise God for His intervention! They are archived beginning February 17, 2021.
Last year’s devotionals, Revelation in 40 offered 40 vignettes, scenes, concepts, and thoughts to inspire us to read the Book of Revelation as it is written and to go deeper. They are archived beginning March 2, 2022.