Mensa Otabil - Made to be Like God (10/02/2025)
We’re still examining the concept of fruitfulness and have considered it from the perspective that the earth is meant to be fruitful, that God has given us the seed to be fruitful, and that God has granted us the power to exercise dominion. All of these are important facts to remember if you want to be fruitful. You can’t be fruitful if you constantly feel that you are under; you must be in charge of your life.
Today, we’re taking this to the grand statement that God created in Genesis chapter 1, verse 27: «So God created man in His own image; in the image of God, He created him; male and female He created them.» I appreciate that significant statement: «male and female He created them both.» Male and female are made in the image of God, and that’s a very important observation. God originated the idea to create us; we didn’t ask to be created, and we didn’t create ourselves. God created us, and He created us to resemble Him, to look like Him. Thus, the passage indicates that God made us in His image.
A simple way to understand that is to use the word «image» as we comprehend it when we look into a mirror. When you look into a mirror, you see an image of yourself. If you lift up your hands, your image lifts up its hand in the mirror; if you smile, the image smiles. The image does what you do, but it is not you. The image is a reflection of you, and so God made us and gave us the capacity to do what He does; however, we are not God. We only reflect Him; we are His image, we have His resemblance, and we can do some of the things that God is able to do. God acts in many ways, and right from the book of Genesis, He is introduced to us as a creator. The word «creator» means a maker, someone who makes things.
That’s the first introduction we have of God: He is a maker; He is a creator. In modern language, you would say He’s a producer or a manufacturer. God doesn’t just exist; He makes things. In Genesis 1, He makes the heavens and the earth and then goes on to make us. This nature of God to make things is part of the image we have; we also have to make things. God has built into human beings the capacity to make things. How does God make things? He makes things in two main ways: He makes things out of nothing when there is nothing, and secondly, He makes things by using what He has made to create something new. For example, when it comes to making man, He took what He had made, the earth, the ground, and made man. He uses already existing material to create something new.
So which part of God’s ability to make things has He imparted to us? Human beings do not have the ability to make things out of nothing; we can’t do that. Only God has the power to create something from nothing. However, we can create things using already existing materials. God has already created the world; we didn’t create it, and out of the world He has created, we have the ability to make things. To be fruitful, we use the internal power that God has given us within His external world, which He has created outside of us. This means there is something inside you that God wants you to use in the world He has created. When we take the gifts inside of us and apply them to the world that God has made, we become fruitful.
A fruitful person, as we mentioned earlier, has a seed from God within, but he also has a world that God has created. In that world, he applies new ideas and new concepts to existing things, and sometimes he produces something new—not new in the sense that they didn’t exist before, but new in that he takes already existing materials and does something good with them. That is how we become fruitful. From the inside, God gives us a gift, and from the outside, He provides the material to make our lives fruitful. I trust that God will help you to deploy what He has placed inside you into this vast world to live a fruitful life.
Let’s pray. Say with me: «Heavenly Father, You made me to be like You. Thank You for breathing Your creative spirit into me. In Jesus' name, Amen.» Your God’s image; go act like Him. I’m Pastor Mensa Otabil. Shalom, peace, and life to you.