https://dailyverses.net/the-word
In God’s Image we are made. No other species speak. Or do they they? They hear sounds and learn how to imitate them. Besides humans, some of the most skilled vocal learners include parrots, songbirds, dolphins, and beluga whales. Animals that can talk are social species, and most of the animals that have this special skill develop it while they’re in captivity. Yes! They do understand what occurs, but in What/Whos ‘Image’ are we made?
Image? Complex term! The Image of God is a concept and theological doctrine in Judaism, Christianity, and some Sufi sects of Islam, which asserts that human beings are created in the image and likeness of God. Philosophers and theologians have debated the exact meaning of the phrase for millennia.
To say that humans are in the Image of God is to recognize the special qualities of human nature which allow God to be made manifest in humans.
Ultimately, God created us for an eternal relationship with Him. This God who created us made us in His image, a fact repeated twice in Genesis 1:27. Man and woMan created in the Image of God implies that God has ownership over our lives and will one day justly pass eternal judgment upon us.
The earth is the LORD’s, and all its fullness, the world and those who dwell therein. — Psalm 24:1
Consider for a moment your possessions. Actually, we can possess nothing — no property and no person — along the way. It is God who owns everything, and we are but stewards of His property during the brief time we are on earth. Everything that we see about us that we count as our possessions only comprises a loan from God, and it is when we lose sight of this all-pervading truth that we become greedy and covetous.
When we clutch an object or a person and say, “This thing is mine,” we are forgetting that we can’t take it with us. This does not mean earthly riches are a sin — the Bible does not say that. The Bible makes it clear that God expects us to do the best we can with the talents, the abilities, the situations with which life endows us. But there is a right way and a wrong way to acquire money and a right way and a wrong way to achieve power.
Choose God’s way, and hold possessions lightly.
How can you think about possessions so that you hold them lightly?
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A CHRISTIAN VIEW OF MATERIALISM
For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil, for which some have strayed from the faith in their greediness, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows. — 1 Timothy 6:10
The Christian attitude should prevail in the matter of economics. Jesus said a man’s life does not consist in the abundance of the things he possesses. Money is a good slave but a bad master. Property is to be used, enjoyed, shared, given, but not hoarded. Paul said that the love of money was the “root of all… evil” (1 Timothy 6:10). Covetousness shackles its devotee and makes him its victim. It hardens the heart and deadens the noble impulses and destroys the vital qualities of life.
Beware of covetousness in every phase and form! All of us should keep ourselves from it through vigilance, prayer, self-control, and discipline. Life is not a matter of dollars and cents, houses and lands, earning capacity and financial achievement. Greed must not be allowed to make man the slave of wealth.
The Christian, above all others, should realize that we come into life with empty hands — and it is with empty hands that we leave it.
Who are you?
https://bible.org/series/who-am-i-people-bible
And we pray:
Lord, make me an instrument of your peace.
Where there is hatred, let me sow love;
where there is injury, pardon;
where there is doubt, faith;
where there is despair, hope;
where there is darkness, light;
and where there is sadness, joy.
O Divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek
to be consoled as to console;
to be understood as to understand;
to be loved as to love.
For it is in giving that we receive;
it is in pardoning that we are pardoned;
and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.
Amen.