Father you are our refuge.  You are a sanctuary to us.  You are the only safe space.  Draw us to yourself.  Enlighten the eyes of our understanding.  Holy Spirit discern our hearts and our lives.  Draw us to the Father, even as the Father has drawn near to us. 

Something thats really helped me in my life, and in my life with God, is to understand what it is to be human.  It can be difficult having a human experience if you dont know what it is to be the image of God.  When I was a teenager my friend had a litter of kittens and one of the kittens disappeared early on.  Well one day it showed up looking all crazy, hanging out with a family of raccoons.  Now this cat had a heck of a time in life because it didnt know what it meant to be a cat.  It didnt know the way a cat functions.  Or what being a cat was all about.  It was tossed to and fro trying to live as a raccoon 

We want to understand ourselves so badly.  We want to know what makes us tick.  We search for answers to know why we are the way we are.  I talked about the personality test … why do we take those things … a personality test can never …

Growing in wisdom, so we can grow in the stature of Sonship … one of the things going on when God was meeting with Adam in the midst of the garden, is Adam was growing in the wisdom of what it meant to be Gods Son.  Adam was growing in the wisdom of what it is to be the image of God.  

We’re born in this world, we grow up learning about the life thats in this world, what it looks like, what it needs to flourish, how to care for it and protect it.  We’re experts in the life thats of the world.  We learn things like natural laws … we learn things like the law of gravity.  We learn to look both ways before we cross the street; we learn to brush our teeth; how to eat.  We we grow up learning how things work in this world so we can function properly in the world.  But, we don’t live and move and have our being in this world …. We’re in this world, but we live and move and have our being in God.  If we have to learn things about the world to navigate it, how much more will it help us to know what it means to be in the image of God.  

Act 17:24  God that made the world and all things therein, seeing that he is Lord of heaven and earth, dwells not in temples made with hands;
Act 17:25  Neither is worshipped with men's hands, as though he needed any thing, seeing he gives to all life, and breath, and all things;
Act 17:26  And has made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth, and has determined the times before appointed, and the bounds of their habitation;
Act 17:27  That they should seek the Lord, if haply they might feel after him, and find him, though he be not far from every one of us:
Act 17:28  For in him we live, and move, and have our being; as certain also of your own poets have said, For we are also his offspring.

Paul says we live and move and have our being in God; thats the bounds of our habitation; God Himself is our habitat. He is the driving force behind our movements.  He sets our lives in motion.   There was a soap opera called As the world turns I think.  The world wakes everyday and everything it does in some form or fashion has its roots in the fact that God has set the bounds of our habitation in Himself.  The pagans on mars hill even though they didn’t believe on God, had a memorial to the unknown God.  They were seeking God ignorantly.  Why?  

When Paul talks about God setting the bounds of our habitation, he’s talking about God making us in His image.  We live and move and have our being in God because we are made in the image of God.  The fact that we are made in the image of God, influences our lives whether we know it or not.  

Gen 1:26  And 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 fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.
Gen 1:27  So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.

For most of my Christian life I didn’t understand what it mean to live and move and have my being in God.  I didn’t understand how it affected me to be made in the image of God, and that left me confused about many things. I didn’t understand my emotions.  I didn’t understand my desires and where they came from.  I didn’t understand why I felt the things I felt.  

Explain what it means to be in the image of God; from the perspective of explaining God being set apart unto life …. God is Holy, He’s set apart unto life.  He is perfect.  Theres no darkness, or death, or fear in God. Use abomination as anything that is contrary to life/its contrary to God ….. God is Holy, He’s set apart unto life.  He is perfect.  Theres no darkness, or death, or fear in God.  

If you are the image of something .. you’re wanting to be found in their likeness.  Idol … From an unused root meaning to shade; a phantom, that is, (figuratively) illusion, resemblance; hence a representative figure, especially an idol: - image, vain shew.  

An idol is a replica of something.  The reason it’s called an idol is because it’s meant to be inhabited/indwelled by the thing it’s an idol of.  When we think of an idol we think of something dumb and mute …

Because we are the image of God we have an inherent desire for life …. There’s a groaning within us to see life manifested in ourselves and in the earth. 

The world wakes everyday, and the order of the day is set by the world desiring life, and a state of perfection.  

Moment we were created in the image of God is gave birth to desire in us, and it tells us what we are desiring .. That where all desires comes from.  Desire was born from the fact that we were created as the image of God.  The moment we were created in the image of God it set forth a desire in us to be found in Gods likeness.  If we don’t know what it is we are desiring, it’s easy to confuse things we enjoy doing with what we are longing for in our hearts.  If we don’t know what the longing in our hearts is for we can end up being deceived by created things and the things in this world, and seek satisfaction … when Jesus was tempted in the desert, he wasnt confused about the desire in his heart.  He knew what it was to be Gods image.  He knew what it meant to be Gods Son.  He knew he was longing to see the Fathers likeness manifested in his body and in the earth.  He knew turning the stones to bread, or even inheriting all the kingdoms of the world, could never satisfy the desire of his heart.  

Thats why we can feel negative emotions.  It’s why we can feel fear and shame …. We’re set apart to wanting life.  We have a longing to see God manifested in our bodies and in the earth.  We know we’re meant for the likeness of Gods immortality, and we’re born in a world shadowed by death, and we’re born in a body that’s been sown in corruption by the first man Adam.  

It can help us to know what hurts us and why … example of a baby …. I remember the first time I fell off my bike and sliced my leg open and bled out.  I was like 4 yrs, old.  I cried because it hurt and I saw blood and I didn’t understand what I felt.  I just knew it wasn’t good …..

When we feel the feels.  When we are beset by the weakness and stress these mortal bodies can feel. We know whats going on there.  It’s no longer a mystery.  It’s not a sign Gods not there.  It’s not a sign we’re separated from the love of God.  What we’re  feeling is the weight of desiring to be clothed in the likeness of God’s life.  We’re longing to be delivered from this body thats perishing.  We’re longing to be found in Gods likeness, and we’re longing to see God’s life manifested.  And because of the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus, we no longer feel ashamed for what we feel; we no longer say oh wretched man that I am, who shall save me.  But we see God in the face of Jesus Christ.  We see Jesus, and we see God condemned the deadness that torments us in the body of Jesus’ death and resurrection.  God put on our perishable flesh, so the life He has in Himself, could consume death in the flesh.  And nothing can separate us from the love of God.  Nothing can separate us from what God’s done to deliver us from these mortal bodies, that can be beset with weakness .. we may not yet see what we will be, but we know that as Jesus is so are we in this world.  We see the substance we long for, and we see the evidence we have it now in the faith God gave us as a gift in the person of Christ Jesus.  

Part about world … much of what torments us in this world, is things the world has presented to us as the treasure that can satisfy our desires.  

Have a knowing we are filled with value; have a knowing we are a treasure; that we are made for glory because there is something beautiful about us; verse about fearfully and wonderfully made … and the world presents us with different things, created things; that can never satisfy our desire to be found to be clothed in the glory of the Father, and that leaves us going after vain glory …. precious(smeegle). 

Gal 5:26  Let us not be desirous of vain glory, provoking one another, envying one another. 

Act 17:27  That they should seek the Lord, if haply they might feel after him, and find him, though he be not far from every one of us:

Being created in the Image of God gives us a honing signal …. E.T had a honing signal that caused him to seek home.  E.T phone home.  E.T phone home.  When God made us in His image, the desire for everlasting was part of our dna.  The desire for everlasting was in our genetics …. So we would seek after Him and find our desire for His likeness satisfied in Him …. It’s meant to cause us to come to the meeting place with Him, in the garden of our hearts, so we can be clothed in His likeness …. Satisfied …. 

Now we were lost yearning for God, longing for His likeness, groaning for incorruption, walking in a world always presenting us with things that were given for enjoyment, but aren’t the treasure we are after, causing us to lust after the likeness of Gods life through created things … and Jesus shows up in the midst of our blindness, in the midst of our confusion; in the midst of our darkness, and discerns for us, that which we are seeking …. 

Jhn 1:4  In him was life; and the life was the light of men. 

We are no longer ignorant of what the longing in our hearts is.  God showed us what we desire in the resurrected Jesus.  We’re wanting to be found in Gods likeness.  We’re wanting to see God manifested in our flesh and in this world.  We see what we’re longing for at the right hand of the Father; that’s meant to draw us to the meeting place with God.  

Adam was meeting with God in the midst of the garden .. He was seeking God and God was seeking him and they were meeting … God doesnt just have us to be seeking Him.  He’s also seeking us.  He sought Adam in the garden when Adam was filled with fear and shame …. Gods seeking us, and His desire is for us to be seeking His likeness, and in seeking his likeness, we seek Him, if haply we might find him, so that just as God clothed Adam in the garden, when Adam was longing to be clothed in Gods likeness, we can be immersed in God likeness, as we patiently wait for the redemption of our bodies.  

Act 2:28  Thou hast made known to me the ways of life; thou shalt make me full of joy with thy countenance. 

Psa 17:15  As for me, I will behold thy face in righteousness: I shall be satisfied, when I awake, with thy likeness. 

Gods wants to satisfy the desire of your heart. He knows what you’re longing for is Him.  He knows you’re longing for His likeness.  He draws you to the meeting place with Him, so you can be clothed in His likeness.  

Psa 37:4  Delight thyself also in the LORD; and he shall give thee the desires of thine heart ……. Behold His face in the beauty of His righteousness towards you, and He shall bring forth His likeness in you.