WHAT IS MAN LIKE?
By Ernest O'Neill
WHAT IS MAN LIKE?
by Rev. Ernest O'Neill.
We all know that a dad likes to give us things. But most of all what we like about him is that he loves us. And what he likes most about us is that we were able to sit on his knee at one time and talk with him. Or later on, we were able to sit beside him and talk with him. And even when it was his last days in bed, we were able to sit by his bedside and talk to him. That's the dearest thing to a real dad.
You are the dearest thing to a real dad. Not the things he gives you, not the things you do, but you yourself. A real father loves you to be with him. That's why he loves you. He loves you because he enjoys being with you. And that's God. God made you to be with Him forever. He loves you. He really loves you. He likes you. He wants to be with you forever. That's why he made you like Himself.
Let's look at Genesis 1:26 at the beginning of the Bible. We've formalized these verses so that the truth has almost been filtered out of them.
Genesis 1:26, "Then God said let us make man", and of course that tells you that he wasn't on his own. Jesus was with him and he turned around to Jesus and 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 air." That's why God made you and me like him because He wanted us to be with him forever and to live with him forever. In order to live with somebody forever and be their friend forever, you have to be like them. I have joked about my little Yorkshire Terrier and how he was great at playing ball but wasn't great at discussing Beethoven's Fifth or discussing predestination. You can't discuss with some lesser form of life something that is dear to you. You need to have someone who is like you and that's why God made us in his image. He made us like himself.
So you are like God. You're different. You're not just a better form of an animal. You're different. Might I just remind you too that you are the only one like you? I know that's startling but you are the only one like you in the world today. You're the only one like you that has ever been in the world. You're the only one like you that will ever be in the world so you have a unique relationship with your Maker. He made you in his image in a way that he has made none of the rest of us in his image. And if you are lost, there will be something permanently lost to Him. But he made us in his image. He made us like himself. And he made us to live dependent on his love.
He gave us a spirit capacity and that's actually how he relates to us. You see that if you look at it in 1 Corinthians 2:9.
1 Corinthians 2:9-10. "But as it is written, 'What no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man conceived, what God has prepared for those who love Him. God has revealed to us through... Einstein.' No. 'God has revealed us through... degrees.' No. 'God has revealed to us through...our university education.' No. 'God has revealed to us through...simultaneous equations.' No. 'God has revealed to us through the Spirit.'"
So, God made us like himself with a spirit like His so that He could communicate His love to us through our spirits. So that's what we said last Sunday. God's love is the way we're meant to live. We're meant to live dependent on His love. We're meant to receive that love through his Spirit who communicates that love through our spirits. That's the way God intended us to operate.
Your spirit is the inside part of you. It's the real YOU. We say, "I like that guy's spirit." We mean that we like the real person that that guy is. "I like him, himself." Your spirit is you, yourself. It's the innermost part of you. It's who you really are. What a man is when he is alone that he is and nothing else. That's it. What you are when you're alone, that's your spirit. God made you with a spirit.