Joyce Meyer - Created In God's Image

Well, I have something special on my heart today that I really want to share with you. The other morning I was just reading the Bible, which I do often, and I was in Genesis chapter 1 looking at. And I'm gonna read them to you and then tell you what's on my heart.

"God said, let us Father, Son, and Holy Spirit make mankind in Our image, after Our likeness, and let them have complete authority over the fish of the sea, the birds of the air, the tame beasts, over all of the earth, and over everything that creeps upon the earth. So God created man in His own image, in the image and likeness of God He created him; male and female He created them." And then the very first sentence of verse 28 says, "And God blessed them."

And when I read that, it just came to me, how many people in the world don't feel special. They feel like they're an accident. They feel like they're invisible. They feel like that nobody wants them.

You know, there's a good number of people that have been adopted and a lot of times people whose parents couldn't keep them or didn't want to keep them for whatever reason. They can have a lifetime of feeling bad about themselves. And it just makes me sad to think how many people don't really know how important they are.

And so, as read that I thought, you know, I'm gonna go in the studio and I'm just gonna sit and talk to people for a little while about what it really means to be able to say that God purposely created you.

God has chosen you. He didn't just get stuck with you. You're not an accident. God purposely chose you and He has a good plan for your life. And not only that, you fit into His plan. God needs you. It says that He created us in His own image. Man is the only creation that is like God.

Now, I didn't say that we are God, but we are created in His image and in his likeness. And it says that He created them male and female and God blessed them. I don't know what kind of a life you have but I do know a lot of people have a really bad life and it's not just because they have bad circumstances.

Matter of fact, I know people with bad circumstances that actually have a good life. And I know people with good circumstances that have a bad life. I don't know what kind of a life you have but I do know from my own experience and from what I've learned in God's Word that a lot of the way we view life and how we feel about our life is based on how we feel about ourselves.

Matter of fact, I think most people's problems, especially emotional problems and a lack of happiness come because they just really don't value themselves. And I want you to know that you are valuable to God.

Now, if we're gonna believe the story of creation, the biblical account of creation, then sometimes that gets at odds with people who believe in evolution. And I'm not gonna get into a dissertation on how I feel about evolution except just to say that if you do believe that you just were an accident, some kind of a big bang explosion at some point and time has eventually developed into you, or that you came from a monkey or an ape that evolved over millions of years and now whoops we have you, then I can understand why maybe you don't feel too good about yourself.

But to know that you're created by God in His image purposely, that says a totally different thing to me. Can I tell you right now? No matter who did not want you, God wanted you and He still wants you and you have value and you're special to Him. And, you know, if I look over then at verse 31, still in chapter 1, I find something that's even more exciting.

"And God saw everything that He had made, and behold, it was very good." So, this is the story of how God created the whole earth and everything that we see and man in those six days and on the seventh day, He rested. And I love the fact that after all of His work and all of His creation, He stood back and looked at it and said, "It is very good." And I think you have to realize that that's what God is wanting to say to you today. You're very good.

You say, "Well, I don't always act so good." Well, you know, I don't always act so good either. I'm improving because I'm letting God work with me but before I understood that God had created me, and that I was special to Him, and I had a purpose, I acted a lot worse than I do now because to be honest, if you feel like you're no good, then you're gonna behave as if you're no good.

I'm sure that there are even people watching today that you've thought a lot about suicide. You don't see any purpose in living. There could even be somebody watching right now and you're planning suicide. Well, I believe that what I'm saying to you today is gonna change your plan because I want you to know, let me say again, no matter who doesn't want you, maybe you were married and the person you were married to rejected you and you feel like they didn't want you.

You're wondering what's wrong with you. It could be a lot of different things. Maybe you weren't invited to the office party and you wonder why they didn't want you. No matter who doesn't want you, God wants you. You're not an accident. He created you lovingly and purposefully with his own hand. And he's looking over you today and say, "What I have created is good."

Now, there's no doubt that a few years in the world, that what God created gets messed up. There's no doubt about that at all. But there's a scripture I'm gonna share with you later that tells us that we are recreated in Christ Jesus. So, we were created by God.

The devil who is our enemy, made sure that we got all messed up. We don't think right. We don't act right. We don't behave right. We don't respond to people right. Nothing seems to be right. But thank God in Christ we can be new creatures and there's always a new beginning.

And maybe you're watching today and you need a new beginning. Well, I'm gonna offer you an opportunity at the end of this little teaching to have that new beginning, and it really just involves a surrender to God of just saying, "I'm not doing a very good job of running my own life, and I'm gonna just believe that what you say in your word is true. And I want you to get involved in my life. I want to receive Jesus Christ as my savior."

So, if we leave this and we go to psalm 139, which is Scriptures that I love to teach on beginning in verse 13, this is David talking about how God created him. And I want you to think about this, not just in some abstract way. But I want you to think about this as if it was a reality and you actually saw this taking place.

"For You God did form my inward parts; You did knit me together in my mother's womb." So, you see, even if your parents have said to you, "Well, I wasn't planning to have another baby when I found out I was pregnant with you," well, your parents might not have been planning you, but God was planning you. And even when you were in your mother's womb, He created you with his own hand.

He said, "I will confess and praise You for You are fearful and wonderful and I will praise You for the awful wonder of my birth!" Now, listen to what David says. This is just so amazing. Then David said, "Wonderful are Your works, o God." So, he's talking about himself as a work of God and he says, "Wonderful are Your works, o God."

I wonder how much better your life would be if you could see yourself as a wonderful creation of God that has value, that has purpose, that's been chosen by God, someone who is special.

Do you know that you have talents, and abilities, and capabilities that nobody else on earth has exactly the same thing that you have? Now, we all have similar talents and capabilities but I can tell you you can do something that nobody else can do.

And I don't want to see God have to go and try to get somebody else because you don't know then in verse 15 he says, "My frame was not hidden from you when I was being formed in secret, when I was being intricately and curiously wrought as if embroidered with various colors in the depths of the earth a region of darkness and mystery. You saw my unformed substance", and listen to this. This is so good. "And in your book all the days of my life were written before ever one of them took shape."

Now, isn't that pretty amazing? That means before really you were ever fully formed in your mother's womb, God already knew you. He knew all about you and every day of your life was already written down in God's book. He knows the end from the beginning. Is it possible for us to miss the best life that God has for us? Absolutely. Because all the promises of God come to us through believing.

I'm wondering right now, what are you believing? Do you believe in God or do you believe that you were just part of some big bang thing that took place? Which really if you want to get right down to it, and I'm not trying to start an argument with people who believe in evolution, even if there was a big bang, where did that come from?

I mean, there has to be a beginning of everything and nothing can just happen as a total accident. There has to be a plan. How can you create life out of non-life? God is the Author and the Giver of life and we are created in His image.

And, you know, I might not be able to sit down and have some kind of a conversation with somebody who's a deep-thinking scientist that has all the answers about evolution. I don't have all the knowledge that they do but I'll tell ya what I do have, I have wisdom. And I'll tell ya what I do know, I know God. And I can tell ya that knowing God is eternal life, that's who we want to know. He want us to come as a little child and believe.

And I feel that there are some you watching right now that you're desperate. You need to believe. You want to believe what I'm saying. You want to believe that you're special. You want to believe that there's a plan for you. You know, some you have got a pretty good life right now but I'm talking specifically to the people today that are lonely.

You feel left out. You feel invisible. You feel like that you're not special. Nobody really cares about you, that you have no value. And I just want to simply say that those are all lies from satan. He is a liar and the father of lies and he's told you all that so there is no way that you can possibly enjoy your life. You know, if God created us intricately, that means that every part of us he cared about.

Now, maybe you have different parts of your body or your personality that you don't like. But you know what? That doesn't mean God doesn't like 'em. You know, I don't know how do we decide what's normal? Maybe, let's say I have a size 7-1/2 foot. Well, maybe you have a 10 size foot and you think, "Well, there's something wrong with my feet." well, what says that a 7-1/2 is the right size foot and a 10 is not the right size?

You know, I have a unique voice for a woman. My voice is very deep and there were a lot of years when I wished that my voice would have been soft and sweet like a lot of women that I knew. And I actually went for a long time where I hated my voice. Well, you should not hate anything about you because everything that you are in your physical frame, God has created.

Now, sometimes we don't take care of ourself and we need to take care of ourself better, but the point is is you don't need to hate anything about yourself. And if you have black hair, there's no point in wishing your hair was blond. Or if you have a deeper voice, there's no point in wishing that you had a sweeter voice. If you're a little larger frame person than your little tiny friends that you know, there's no point in hating yourself because of that.

God has a purpose and a plan for each thing that we are. And I could certainly make a point about my voice because now God uses it over television. It goes to many parts of the world and I get to share the gospel with people. And I've had numerous people say to me, "Your voice was so unique that I just had to stop and listen."

Well, you see, this thing that I hated for a long time, God had a purpose for. And so, I don't want you to hate anything about yourself. Now, you might remember that I said that there's a scripture that I want to share with you about how we are recreated in Christ. In other words, we get a chance for a brand-new beginning. The Bible says that we are created by God.