The Carnival of Beauty this weeks calls us to reflect on the Beauty of being Made in God's Image. Return here on Wednesday to read all the contributions from across the globe!

Genesis 1 tells us that on the sixth day of creation:

God said, "Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and 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.

And God blessed them. And God said to them, "Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth."

When we talk about being made in God's image, we can see how mankind was designed to reflect God's person and character.

God was love even before he created us and loved us, so there was love and fellowship between the three persons of the Godhead. As mankind, we have been created to love God and can see that our lives go awry when we fall away from him, when we depart from our true purpose of life.

We also have a need and a desire to love others, to experience love of others and to have fellowship with each other. We have been given marriage as a picture of how this submission and love works within the Godhead, but, even for those of us who are not (yet) married, we have been given the church and the body of believers as a family in which to experience and demonstrate this.

The first act of God that we read of in the Bible is the creation of the universe. He then gives his brand new and "very good" world to humans to care for and steward it. God has put that desire for creation and work into our hearts so that we might reflect his glory in our own care for the creation and in our own contributions to creation.

Think of many wonderful pieces of art, architecture, literature, scientific advances or music, all created by man but stemming from a deeper desire placed in us by God. He has given us the ability of conscious thought and self-awareness, more so than other creature, and so allows us to study, create and compose. Perhaps this is also reflected in the desire of many of us to have children - the ultimate creative act we are given as mankind?

In the Fall and in our rebellion, this image of God has been tarnished. Our relationship with God, each other and creation has been ruined. We have not been left in this sorry state however. Jesus who is the "image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation" (Colossians 1:15) and the "radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature" (Hebrews 1:3) has come to redeem us. Through him, we can put on a new self, created "after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness" (Ephesians 4:24) and "which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator" (Colossians 3:10).