Only Human (Lent 3, 2023)

After God created the entire Animal Kingdom except for humans, that’s when He said, “Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness.” Only human beings bear the Image of God. No other animal does. Arguably, no angels do. Only mankind.

Focus for Lent: It is a high privilege to bear God’s Image, and our fulfilling the responsibility is of paramount importance.

Questions for further thought:

In what way should that make us appreciate God’s Image in us?

In what way does His Image and His likeness dictate your daily living?

In what way does our culture try to blur the distinction between men and animals (like monkeys, apes, and gorillas, etc.) along largely superficial terms, and how is this an offense to God?

Does Scripture leave us any room for that elevation of animals, lowering of mankind, or is man totally set apart?

Why might our adversary want us to believe that we are not above other animals and forget that we have a mandate regarding God’s Image?

Prayer: Lord Jesus, thank You for giving both Your likeness and Image to humanity. We are in awe of why You would choose to set us apart as the pinnacle of Your earthly Creation. Help us to understand how incredibly special and significant that is. There are powerful ramifications of the blessings to rule and subdue, to be fruitful and multiply Your Image, so that Your Image might cover the face of the earth. Even if animals can reproduce and plants can, too, each according to their kinds, none of them are in Your likeness or bear Your Image. Help us to remember that only humanity can propagate Your Image throughout the world. We stand in awe of Your goodness, Your plan, and Your grace. Forgive us for the times we listen to the world instead of Your Spirit and Scriptures, or we trust theories of science more than the truth of Your Word. Help us to stand strong for You as our Creator. 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.