Have you ever really thought about who you are and what you were put on this earth to do? Both questions can produce a multitude of answers depending on whom you ask and what you take into consideration.
In modern society, true men are defined as anything from abusive drunks to gracious gentleman, and women are anything from helpless idiots to slutty temptresses. As for their roles within society, thanks to the ACLU, feminists, and chauvinists, no pure answer as to what a man and a woman are created to do seems to be politically correct enough to mention.
However, God, in His grace, has given man His Word that details exactly who everyone is and for what purpose all of humanity was created.
“Then God said, ‘Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; let them have dominion 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.” (Gen. 1:26-27)
God created both man and woman to bear His image on the earth. To be an image bearer of God means that to be a true man or woman a person is to reflect the character of God. God placed men and women on the earth for the sole purpose of acting and appearing like God on the earth.
This was no problem for Adam and Eve. They personally talked and hung out with God in the Garden of Eden, but after they messed up and brought sin into the world, the unclean state of humanity caused it to lose the opportunity to live in God’s presence and to live a sin free life.
God sent His own son in the person of Jesus to show and tell humanity about who they are and how to perfectly live and represent God on the earth. He perfectly lived out the life of a human who knows who he is and what he was created to do.
The problem for men and women is that, unlike Jesus, they are not perfect because Adam and Eve’s original sin caused all of humanity to be tainted by sin and unable to live a perfect life free from sin.
“For as through the one man’s disobedience the many were made sinners, even so through the obedience of the One the many will be made righteous.” (Romans 5:19)
Men and women are spiritually dead and unable to please God unless God gives them spiritual life back to them through salvation in Christ.
“But God, who is rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ.” (Ephesians 2:4-5)
Believers in Christ are the only people on this earth who can truly know who they are and what they were created to accomplish. When Christ died for everyone’s sins, He provided all who believe in Him the ability to connect with God through Him. When you believe in Christ and trust in Him as your savior, it is like you switched places with Him; you give Him your sin and He gives you His righteousness. It is like you died, were buried, and resurrected because Christ did those things in your place. This means that God looks at believers and does not see dirty sinners but Christ in all of his perfection.
Unlike the dead and meaningless existence lived by those who are not Christians, Christians are truly alive and have access to their Creator, who knows better than anyone else who they are and why they were created (Ephesians 2:1-10).
“Therefore we were buried with Him through baptism into death, that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life.” (Romans 6:4)
Because they are in Christ, believers are adopted children of God, heirs with Christ of all the heavenly blessings one can imagine, and are to live up to their new status by living like Christ.
Men and women contain a reflection of God, and bringing out that reflection in order to present it to the world is what they were created to do. Oprah, Dr. Phil, and even a person’s parents cannot say whom you are or what you were created to do.
Only God, who created people to represent Him on this earth, knows each person and how they can best fulfill humanity’s purpose.
Men and women are so much more than what society tries to tell us that they are, so why would anyone ever want to do anything but become all that they can be by becoming all that God created them to be.