In His Image Quotes

It [Communism] is not new. It is, in fact, man's second oldest faith. Its promise was whispered in the first days of the Creation under the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil: "Ye shall be as gods." It is the great alternative faith of mankind. Like all great faiths, its force derives from a simple vision. Other ages have had great visions. They have always been different versions of the same vision: the vision of God and man's relationship to God. The Communist vision is the vision of Man without God.
It is the vision of man's mind displacing God as the creative intelligence of the world. It is the vision of man's liberated mind, by the sole force of its rational intelligence, redirecting man's destiny and reorganizing man's life and the world. It is the vision of man, once more the central figure of the Creation, not because God made man in his image, but because man's mind makes him the most intelligent of the animals. Copernicus and his successors displaced man as the central fact of the universe by proving that the earth was not the central star of the universe. Communism restores man to his sovereignty by the simple method of denying God. ~ Whittaker Chambers

We are made in his image, and to him we return. After ~ Amy Harmon

Have you honestly pondered your individual worth? Consider every lower life form in the world - the animals, plants, fouls and fishes. Consider the land forms and numerous earthly wonders. Consider the countless worlds beyond this planet as well as their stars and galaxies. And then consider yourself. Of all God's creations, you were formed in His image, resembling the likeness of a God. That's something to think about. ~ Richelle E. Goodrich

If we were made in his image then call us by our names.
Most intellects do not believe in god but they fear us just the same ~ Erykah Badu

Had God,then,peopled the whole universe with our kind?Did he perhaps in very truth make us in his image?It was incredible.To ask such questions proved that I had lost mental balance. ~ Olaf Stapledon

Thus, the sons of Plato proclaim "the death of God," i.e., the God of Scripture, because He refuses to exist in terms of their definition. It does not greatly trouble them to proclaim God dead; in fact, the supposed funeral is their celebration. The "death" of the God of Scripture, however, requires the death of the man created in His image, and, as a result, "the death of God" society seeks then to destroy historical man, the real man of time, in order to create a new man in terms of their idea and purpose.

Man as an Idea in philosophy and sociology is an inhuman abstraction; he is a monster who neither exists nor can exist. ~ Rousas John Rushdoony

I believe that when we treat homosexual people as pariahs and push them outside our communities and churches; when we blame them for who they are; when we deny them our blessing on their commitment to lifelong, faithful relationships, we make them doubt whether they are children of God, made in his image. ~ Steve Chalke

God created us in joy and created us for joy, and in the long run not all the darkness there is in the world and in ourselves can separate us finally from that joy, because whatever else it means to say that God created us in His image, I think it means that even when we cannot believe in Him, even when we feel most spiritually bankrupt and deserted by Him, His mark is deep within us. We have God's joy in our blood. ~ Frederick Buechner

God made us for one reason: so He could have fellowship with us. It wasn't that He was lonely or needed us but He made us in His image so He could shower His love upon us. ~ Billy Graham

This is, indeed, an insightful observation. The Archbishop [Joseph L. Berardin] insists that the natural resemblance between Christ and his priests must not stop merely with the fact that they share a common masculinity. Our question is, 'Why must it BEGIN there?' If the faithful cannot see Christ in a male who exemplifies no godlike virtues - humility, gentleness, and self-effacing service - can they not see him in a female who does? Indeed, if the priest acts 'in persona Christi,' not 'in masculinitate Christi,' then 'NATURAL resemblance' between Christ and the priest, it would seem, does not entail PHYSICAL, that is SEXUAL resemblance, but a resemblance which is natural to the SPIRITUAL order with which the worshiping congregation has to do. And in this order there is neither male nor female, even as there is neither Jew nor Greek. We would, therefore, conclude that since the Word was made flesh, as the apostle John has declared him (John 1:14), we rightly heed those who, in the flesh, symbolize his presence as they speak and act in his name. But we see no reason to add to what the apostle said by insisting that the Word was made MALE flesh, for both male and female are equally bearers of the divine image. And since God created humankind in his image, male AND female, we can only conclude that women as well as men should be ordained to the priesthood, because femaleness, like maleness, is a fitting symbol (sacramental sign) of Deity. ~ Paul King Jewett

That story placed man above the animals, until man's fall at Eve's hand, and linked humans to God himself, fashioned in his image. But now the black wolf was telling the girl a grave secret. That man was an animal too. ~ David Clement-Davies

As the skull of the man grows broader, so do his creeds. And his gods they are shaped in his image and mirror his needs. And he clothes them with thunders and beauty, He clothes them with music and fire, Seeing not, as he bows by their altars, That he worships his own desire. ~ Don Marquis

At the heart of racism stands Satan, not man. No one is more pleased by the racial tension in the world than God's ultimate enemy. I'm sure he marvels at how shallow we humans tend to be, by hating one another simply because of skin color! If you are a child of the Most High God and you are fighting in this war of division and hatred (even if only in thought), you are fighting for the enemy.

If this is you, you need to repent of this sin and start seeing others the way God sees them, as made in His image. If not, Satan will keep stirring your mind with thoughts that will not only further stoke the burning hatred of racism deep within you, it will put even more distance between you and the One who saw your unformed body before the foundations of the world, and knit you together in your mother's womb. ~ Patrick Higgins

In 1941, Dorothy L. Sayers provided a detailed analysis of that creative process in The Mind of the Maker. She developed the relevance of the imago Dei for understanding artistic creation in explicitly trinitarian terms. In every act of creation there is a controlling idea (the Father), the energy which incarnates that idea through craftsmanship in some medium (the Son), and the power to create a response in the reader (the Spirit). These three, while separate in identity, are yet one act of creation. So the ancient credal statements about the Trinity are factual claims about the mind of the maker created in his image. Sayers delves into the numerous literary examples, in what is one of the most fascinating accounts ever written both of the nature of literature and of the imago Dei. While some readers may feel she has a tendency to take a good idea too far, The Mind of the Maker remains an indispensable classic of Christian poetics. ~ Leland Ryken

Lucien had intimated that the king was an unholy creation; it stood to reason that he would create others in his image. Wasn't she one of the king's own experiments, evidence of his playing god? ~ Den Patrick

Turn him into stars and form a constellation in his image. His face will make the heavens so beautiful that the world will fall in love with the night and forget about the garish sun. ~ William Shakespeare

The ability of each individual to ignite a thought and usher into reality that which was previously invisible into something visible is unique to humanity and a testament to our inherited creativity an outcome of a Creator God who has created us in His image and likeness ~ Oliver Harper

As children of God we are somebody. He will build us, mold us, and magnify us if we will but hold our heads up, our arms out, and walk with him. What a great blessing to be created in his image and know of our true potential in and through him! What a great blessing to know that in his strength we can do all things! ~ Marvin J. Ashton

As we rely on God, and trust his Spirit to mold us in his image, true hope takes shape within us, "a hope that does not disappoint."We can literally become better persons because of suffering. Pain, however meaningless it may seem at the time, can be transformed. Where is God when it hurts? He is in us - not in the things that hurt - helping to transform bad into good.We can safely say that God can bring good out of evil; we cannot say that God brings about the evil in hopes of producing good. ~ Philip Yancey

I love God, whoever he is, and I'd really like to get closer to him. I've been thinking about how one of the simplest ways to get close to a woman is to be good to her children. To be kind and gentle and to pay close attention to the things that make them special. To try to see her children the way she sees her children. And how God made us in his image. How he is the mother and father of all of us. So I wonder if that would be the best way to get closer to him too. By being kind and gentle to his children and noticing all of the things that make them special. So many of us spend our time trying to find God in books, but maybe the simplest way to God is directly through the hearts of his children. ~ Glennon Doyle Melton

If you can grasp those two truths - you are made in His image and dependent on Him - you will discover a great dignity and at the same time a profound humility. ~ Colin S. Smith

Gradually, it began to dawn on me that the image of God as Father, Son and Spirit was at the root of the problem. No matter what I did, I would never be ¨in his image.¨ While I had hoped to find in God a father who would love and accept my female self, it seemed that ¨he,¨ like my father and most of my professors, liked boys better. I decided that unless we could call God Mother as well as Father, Daughter as well as Son, women and girls would never be valued. ~ Carol P. Christ

On Friday night, you stole the life of an exceptional being, the love of my life, the mother of my son, but you will not have my hate. I don't know who you are and I don't want to know. You are dead souls. If that God for whom you blindly kill made us in his image, every bullet in my wife's body will have been a wound in his heart.

So, no, I will not give you the satisfaction of hating you. That is what you want, but to respond to your hate with anger would be to yield to the same ignorance that made you what you are. You want me to be scared, to see my fellow citizens through suspicious eyes, to sacrifice my freedom for security. You have failed. I will not change.

I saw her this morning. At last, after days and nights of waiting. She was as beautiful as when she went out on Friday evening, as beautiful as when I fell madly in love with her more than twelve years ago. Of course I'm devastated by grief, I grant you that small victory, but it will be short-lived. I know that she will be with us every day and that we will see each other in the paradise of free souls to which you will never have access.

There are only two of us – my son and myself – but we are stronger than all the armies of the world. Anyway, I don't have any more time to waste on you, as I must go to see Melvil, who is waking up from his nap. He is only seventeen months old. He will eat his snack as he does every day, then we will play as we do every day, and all his life this ~ Antoine Leiris

It is clear now why Christianity played a significant role in launching the scientific revolution in the first place. Only a biblical worldview provides an adequate epistemology for science. First, a rational God created the world with an intelligible structure, and second, he created humans in his image. In the words of historian Richard Cohen, science required the concept of a "rational creator of all things," along with the corollary that "we lesser rational beings might, by virtue of that Godlike rationality, be able to decipher the laws of nature." Theologian Christopher Kaiser states the same idea succinctly: the early scientists assumed that "the same Logos that is responsible for its ordering is also reflected in human reason. ~ Nancy Pearcey

God did not, as the Bible says, make man in His image; on the contrary man, as I have shown in The Essence of Christianity, made God in his image. ~ Ludwig Feuerbach

It is to this dimension of God, a God who cannot tolerate the reduction of a human being, fashioned in His image, to less than human status, that Job may be appealing. Job, in his extremity, is calling on God, saying, "I have no one left. I am without family. My friends have deserted me. You who are the Father of all humanity, is it not Your obligation to atone for my children's deaths as their go'el and to extract me from my current situation as my go'el?" Zophar ~ Harold S. Kushner

There are times when you may feel your life has been crumpled,
crushed, stomped on, or even torn in pieces. Your value and
worth is not determined by what has happened to you, but rather
by the value placed upon you by the one who governs your life
(the one who created you in His image and likeness). The one
who sees you as wonderfully and fearfully made.
....
A $100 dollar bill can be crumpled, crushed, stomped on or even
torn -- it is still is worth $100. The value of the $100 dollar bill is
not determined by what happened to it. To the government it will
still spend as a $100; its value has not changed even if the state of
its condition has. Even crumpled, it could be pressed out, crushed
it could be pressed and smoothed out, or stomped on and torn, it
could be taped back together and still be worth $100 in value.

What may have happened to you in life does not define who you
are. You are the apple of God's eye. You are His prize possession
and treasure. You must see yourself as a person of worth and
value. ~ Jennifer Johnson

If the opening chapters of Genesis portray God as a creative artist, then it only stands to reason that the people he made in his image will also be artists. Art is an imaginative activity, and in the act of creating, we reflect the mind of our Maker. ~ Philip Graham Ryken

God created us in his image, male and female, with personhood and sexual passions, so that when he comes to us in this world there would be these powerful words and images to describe the promises and the pleasures of our covenant relationship with him through Christ. ~ John Piper

In the face of God's obvious inadequacies, the pious have generally held that one cannot apply earthly norms to the Creator of the universe. This argument loses its force the moment we notice that the Creator who purports to be beyond human judgment is consistently ruled by human passions - jealousy, wrath, suspicion, and the lust to dominate. A close study of our holy books reveals that the God of Abraham is a ridiculous fellow - capricious, petulant, and cruel - and one with whom a covenant is little guarantee of health or happiness. If these are the characteristics of God, then the worst among us have been created far more in his image than we ever could have hoped. ~ Sam Harris

Every church, yea, every truth and every good cause, has its martyrs, who stood the fiery trial and sacrificed comfort and life itself to their sacred convictions. The blood of martyrs is the seed of toleration; toleration is the seed of liberty; and liberty is the most precious gift of God to every man who has been made in his image and redeemed by Christ. ~ Philip Schaff

The Bible tells us that God will meet all our needs. He feeds the birds of the air and clothes the grass with the splendor of lilies. How much more, then, will He care for us, who are made in His image? Our only concern is to obey the heavenly Father and leave the consequences to Him. ~ Charles Stanley

Our personal relationship with the Savior will re-create us in His image. He is to be our purpose and passion. We are to long to know Him better and make Him known to others. ~ Lloyd John Ogilvie

All my life I'd been a believing Christian ... But that instant in the ER
the instant Annette [his wife] died
I seemed to feel my religious faith die, too.
As I thought more about it in the bleak days and weeks that followed, I decided the Bible had gotten it exactly backward. Maybe God hadn't created us in His image; maybe we'd created god in our image. ~ William M. Bass

You may find yourself hampered by someone who sows tares of despondency. He tries to prevent you from climbing to such heights of holiness by discouraging you with various thoughts. For instance, he will tell you that it is impossible for you to be saved and to keep every single one of God's commandments while you live in this world. When this happens you should sit down in a solitary place by yourself, collect yourself, concentrate your thoughts and give good counsel to your soul, saying: "Why, my soul, are you dejected, and why do you trouble me? Put your hope in God, for I will give thanks to Him; for my salvation lies not in my actions but in God (cf. Ps. 42:5). Who will be vindicated by actions done according to the law (cf. Gal 2:16)? No living person will be vindicated before God (cf. Ps. 143:2). Yet by virtue of my faith in God I hope that in His ineffable mercy He will give me salvation. Get behind me, Satan (cf. Matt. 16:23). I worship the Lord my God (cf. Matt. 4:10) and serve Him from my youth; for He is able to save me simply through His mercy. Go away from me. The God who created me in His image and likeness will reduce you to impotence. ~ Symeon The New Theologian

We may appreciate the efforts, and even the greatness of the men who have tried to find the universal, the general 'behind' appearances; yet at the same time their quest was doomed to fail, for all universals break down as soon as the Creator, He who made man in His image, is denied or left out of account. ~ Hans Rookmaaker

Faggot, queer, fairy. Those words aren't taught in a history course. You don't learn them with the alphabet. Discrimination comes from the circles you're supposed to trust. The home, the family, the church. They try to convince you God made you in his image, and then would destroy you because you weren't good enough. That's a good God? Who comes up with this crap? ~ Dan Skinner

JANUARY 22 Let God Be God For who has known or understood the mind (the counsels and purposes) of the Lord so as to guide and instruct Him and give Him knowledge? 1 CORINTHIANS 2:16 It is not your job to give God guidance, counsel, or direction. It is your job to listen to God and let Him tell you what is going on and what you are to do about it - leaving the rest to Him to work out according to His knowledge and will, not yours. God is God - and you are not. You need to recognize that truth and simply trust yourself to Him, because He is greater than you are in every way. You are created in His image, but He is still above and beyond you. His thoughts and ways are higher than yours. So listen to God tonight, be obedient to Him, and He will teach you His ways. Cast off your care, releasing the weight of all your burdens and sleep peacefully. ~ Joyce Meyer

Wanting to end my curse isn't the same as wanting to give in to an asshole. I don't care if god really did choose you. You're no worthier than any of the rest of us. No worthier than him.

We're all god's monsters.

All made in his goddamn image. If he wants his fucking world back . . . tell him to come down here and take it. If he's got the goddamn balls. ~ Jason Aaron

We cannot deal with people like human beings, we cannot deal with them on the high level of true humanity, unless we really know their origin-who they are. God tells man who he is. God tells us that He created man in His image. So man is something wonderful. ~ Francis A. Schaeffer

All right, Herr Stern, if God made man in His image, which race is most like him? Is a Pole more like him than a Czech? ~ Thomas Keneally

While the law of God is something we intuitively, if partially, know because we are made in his image, in our sinful condition we repress that knowledge and fight against our consciences when they alert us to our own wrongdoing. We need his law more than we need a vague admonition to "love" and "worship. ~ Joe Thorn

Every creature reproduces after its kind. A dog gives birth to dogs, a cat gives birth to cats, a cow gives birth to cows, a monkey reproduces monkeys and a human reproduces humans. So when God gives birth, what do you think He'll reproduce? gods, of course! When God created Man, He created him in His image and after His likeness. That's why we look like Him; we have two hands the same way He has two hands. We have two legs, one head, one mouth, one nose, two ears and two eyes just like Him. ~ Chris Oyakhilome

All right, all right, you go right on thinking you an act of God created in his image, and I'll go right on thinking I'm descended from an ape. When you look in the mirror I should think you'd feel pretty discouraged; I wouldn't be happy to look at myself and think that my faces is an Imago Dei. It wouldn't make me feel I'd done very well by God. But when I look in the mirror and that I'm descended from an ape, I feel I've done remarkably well. ~ Madeleine L'Engle

The moral absolutes rest upon God's character. The moral commands He has given to men are an expression of His character. Men as created in His image are to live by choice on the basis of what God is. The standards of morality are determined by what conforms to His character, while those things which do not conform are immoral. ~ Francis Schaeffer

Being made in His image we have within us the capacity to know Him. In our sins we lack only the power. The moment the Spirit has quickened us to life in regeneration our whole being senses its kinship to God and leaps up in joyous recognition. ~ A.W. Tozer

If God makes man in His image, we all return the favor. ~ Diana Gabaldon

Pain is a curse people can not bear but god who made the heavens and earth made it so so exept it. God made all living things he made us in his image Athiests were captured by the devil and were told lies so this is why we pray for them and hope they come to under stand we were not made by monkeys or a big bang. ~ Gerald Olson

From the first day I met his daughter, all I could think about was snuffling up under that sweet dimity like some bad old bear, just crawling up into that honeycomb, nose twitching, and never come out of there till early spring. Think that's disgusting? Dammit, I do, too, but that's the way male animals are made. Those peculiar delights were created to entrap us, and anybody who disapproves can take it up with God.

In their wondrous capacity of knowing the Lord's mind, churchly folks will tell you that He would purely hate to hear such dirty talk. My idea is, He wouldn't mind it half so much as they would have us think, because even according to their own queer creed, we are God's handiwork, created in His image, lust, piss, shit, and all. Without that magnificent Almighty lust that we mere mortals dare to call a sin, there wouldn't be any more mortals, and God's grand design for the human race, if He exists and if He ever had one, would turn to dust, and dust unto dust, forever and amen. Other creatures would step up and take over, realizing that man was too weak and foolish to properly reproduce himself. I nominate hogs to inherit the Earth, because hogs love to eat any old damned thing God sets in front of them, and they're ever so grateful for God's green earth even when it's all rain and mud, and they just plain adore to feed and fuck and frolic and fulfill God's holy plan. For all we know, it's hogs which are created in God's image, who's to say? ~ Peter Matthiessen

They wept for humanity, those two, not for themselves. They could not bear that this should be the end. Ere silence was completed their hearts were opened, and they knew what had been important on the earth. Man, the flower of all flesh, the noblest of all creatures visible, man who had once made god in his image, and had mirrored his strength on the constellations, beautiful naked man was dying, strangled in the garments that he had woven. Century after century had he toiled, and here was his reward. Truly the garment had seemed heavenly at first, shot with colours of culture, sewn with the threads of self-denial. And heavenly it had been so long as man could shed it at will and live by the essence that is his soul, and the essence, equally divine, that is his body. The sin against the body - it was for that they wept in chief; the centuries of wrong against the muscles and the nerves, and those five portals by which we can alone apprehend - glozing it over with talk of evolution, until the body was white pap, the home of ideas as colourless, last sloshy stirrings of a spirit that had grasped the stars. ~ E.M. Forster

Man is more interesting than men. God made him and not them in his image. Each one is more precious than all. ~ Andre Gide

If God made us in his image, then maybe we have a right to play God when we can't find Him anymore. ~ Jenny Hubbard

When you love someone more than he loves you, you'll do anything to switch the scales. You dress the way you think he'd like you to dress. You pick up his favorite figures of expression. You tell yourself that if you re-create yourself in his image, then he'll crave you in the same way you crave him. ~ Jodi Picoult

We used to think God made us in His image, and that meant we were special, until science told us we just evolved that way because it suited a landscape of trees and savannas. That's what science does: it says, look again and you'll see you're not special. But economics? Economics is also a science. And what does it say? ... It says: there is energy, and there are raw materials, and that's the cosmos. But without us the energy is random and the raw material is inert. It's only labour that makes the cosmos come alive. It's only us that make economics happen at all. And that makes us special. ~ Adam Roberts

When you were so depressed after you shot Mr. Garrett Jacob Hobbs to death, it wasn't the act that got you down, was it? Really, didn't you feel so bad because killing him felt so good? Think about it, but don't worry about it. Why shouldn't it feel good? It must feel good to God - He does it all the time, and are we not made in His image? ~ Thomas Harris

It is the Spirit of God that actively sustains every form and force in the universe; yet He is transcendental and aloof in the blissful uncreated void beyond the worlds of vibratory phenomena," Master explained. "Saints who realize their divinity even while in the flesh know a similar twofold existence. Conscientiously engaging in earthly work, they yet remain immersed in an inward beatitude. The Lord has created all men from the limitless joy of His being. Though they are painfully cramped by the body, God nevertheless expects that souls made in His image shall ultimately rise above all sense identifications and reunite with Him. ~ Paramahansa Yogananda

With my last breath ... may I thank my almighty creator for giving me his breath of life. May my life try to bring praise to him. Thanking him for creating me in his image (in spirit), his frendship and for using my life as a instrument of peace! ~ Timothy Pina

Remember that there is a God who desires neither praise nor glory from men created in his image, but rather that they, guided by the understanding given them, should in their actions become like unto him. ~ Marcus Aurelius

So, to summarise: Science is the search for explanation. Religion is the search for meaning. Meaning is not accidental to the human condition because we are the meaning-seeking animal. To believe on the basis of science that the universe has no meaning is to confuse two disciplines of thought: explanation and interpretation. The search for meaning, though it begins with science, must go beyond it. Science does not yield meanings, nor does it prove the absence of meanings. The meaning of a system lies outside the system. Therefore the meaning of the universe lies outside the universe. The belief in a God who transcends the universe was the discovery of Abrahamic monotheism, which transformed the human condition, endowing it with meaning and thereby rescuing it from tragedy in the name of hope. For if God created the physical universe, then God is free, and if God made us in his image, we are free. If we are free, then history is not a matter of eternal recurrences. Because we can change ourselves, we can change the world. That is the religious basis of hope. There are cultures that do not share these beliefs. They are, ultimately, tragic cultures, for whatever shape they give the powers they name, those powers are fundamentally indifferent to human fate. They may be natural forces. They may be human institutions: the empire, the state, the political system, or the economy. They may be human collectivities: the tribe, the nation, the race. But all end in tragedy because none at ~ Jonathan Sacks

Man's conscious state is an awareness of body and breath. His subconscious state, active in sleep, is associated with his mental, and temporary, separation from body and breath. His superconscious state is a freedom from the delusion that "existence" depends on body and breath. God lives without breath; the soul made in his image becomes conscious of itself, for the first time, only during the breathless state. ~ Paramahansa Yogananda

His song would be our only path, despite any sins w might have committed and any punishments we might deserve. What we believed in, and what we said aloud, we could create before His eyes and in His image. ~ Alice Hoffman

Hell is an outrage on humanity. When you tell me that your deity made you in his image, I reply that he must have been very ugly. ~ Victor Hugo

B'gwus is famous because of his wide range of homes. In some places, he's called Bigfoot. In other places, he's Yeti, or the Abominable Snowman, or Sasquatch. To most people, he is the equivalent of the Loch Ness monster, something silly to bring the tourist in. His image is even used to sell beer, and he is portrayed as a laid-back kind of guy, lounging on mountaintops in patio chairs, cracking open a frosty one. ~ Eden Robinson

Sounds a little like my quote for the week. Do you want to hear it? This is by Augustine: O soul, He only who created thee can satisfy thee. If thou ask for anything else, it is thy misfortune, for He alone made thee in His image can satisfy thee. That's rich, isn't it? ~ Robin Jones Gunn

There's an old saying that God made us in His image, and we've been trying to return the favor ever since. People often view God in a human image. This God changes His mind, gets upset, answers some prayers but not others, loves some people but not others. But even with that limited image, if we pray sincerely, we'll eventually realize that God is changeless. He's the same all the time because He's not in time-time is in Him. ~ Michael Beckwith

He has infinite happiness not through self-centeredness, but through self-giving, other-centered love. And the only way we, who have been created in his image, can have this same joy, is if we center our entire lives around him instead of ourselves. Why ~ Timothy Keller

All of our faith and practice arise out of the drama of Scripture, the "big story" that traces the plot of history from creation to consummation, with Christ as its Alpha and Omega, beginning and end. And out of the throbbing verbs of this unfolding drama God reveals stable nouns - doctrines. From what God does in history we are taught certain things about who he is and what it means to be created in his image, fallen, and redeemed, renewed, and glorified in union with Christ. As the Father creates his church, in his Son and by his Spirit, we come to realize what this covenant community is and what it means to belong to it; what kind of future is promised to us in Christ, and how we are to live here and now in the light of it all. The drama and the doctrine provoke us to praise and worship - doxology - and together these three coordinates give us a new way of living in the world as disciples. ~ Michael S. Horton

...the incarnation is the complete refutation of every human system and institution that claims to control, possess, and distribute God. Whatever any church or religious leader may claim in regard to their particular access to God or control over your experience of God, the incarnation is the last word: God loves the world. God came into the world in the form of the people he created, the human race (including you and me), who bear his image. God's creation of humanity in his image gives hints of who he is, since we all are marked by his fingerprints.

But as flawed humans, we give only a vague hint of God. Our broken reflection of God's image is easily drowned out by our broken humanity. then, two thousand years ago, God came in his fullness. He came to all of us in Jesus. The incarnation is not owned, trademarked, or controlled by any church. It belongs to every human being. The incarnation is not something that requires a distributor or middleman. It is a gracious gift to every person everywhere, religious or not. God gave himself to us in Jesus. ~ Michael Spencer

Hornig put the block of wood down on the desk, and placed the knife he'd just recently planted into his long time best friend and colleague's throat beside it. "God hates sin, and sinners, but he made us in his image. So He must be a sinner, too, yes? That means He's self loathing and nothing is as dangerous as a man who hates himself. Because if He hates Himself, how could He possibly give a shit about you? ~ T.W. Grim

If that God for whom you blindly kill made us in his image, each bullet in my wife's body will have been a wound in his heart. ~ Antoine Leiris

God must've had a blast. painting the stripes on the zebra, hanging the stars in the sky, putting the gold in the sunset. What creativity!
Stretching the neck of the giraffe, putting the flutter in the mockingbird's wings, planting the giggle in the hyena. And then, as a finale to a brilliant performance, He made a human who had the unique honour to bear the stamp, In His Image. ~ Max Lucado

Our creativity, our inner sense of right and wrong, our ability to love and to reason - all bear witness to the fact that God created us in His image. The Bible says God "has not left himself without testimony" [Acts 14:17 NIV]. ~ Billy Graham

Man, the flower of all flesh, the noblest of all creatures visible, man who had once made god in his image, and had mirrored his strength on the constellations, beautiful naked man was dying, strangled in the garments that he had woven. ~ E.M. Forster

Perhaps the strongest indictment against us as the Church is that we have settled for an Americanized version of the Church that mirrors whatever culture says, and there is no collective sense of loss, no sense of remorse. We have sinned deeply. The problem is that we haven't got a taste of the sinfulness of racism... We don't see the wickedness of profiling God's people that He has created to be one and that He has created in His image (p. 75). ~ John M. Perkins

I have crusaded across his empire for over a century, raising icons and faiths in his image – and only now he objects? After a hundred years, only now am I told that all I've done is wrong? ~ Aaron Dembski-Bowden

God truly is our Father, the Father of the spirits of all mankind. We are his literal offspring and are formed in his image. We have inherited divine characteristics from him. ~ Joseph B. Wirthlin

It is convenient for the old men to blame Eve. To insist we are damned because a country girl talked to the snake one afternoon long ago. Children must starve in Somalia for that, and old women be abandoned in our greatest cities. It's why we will finally be thrown into the lakes of molten lead. Because she was confused by happiness that first time anyone said she was beautiful. Nevertheless, she must be the issue, so people won't notice that rocks and galaxies, mathematics and rust are also created in His image. ~ Jack Gilbert

If changing our world is playing God, it is just one more way in which God made us in His image. ~ Aubrey De Grey

Any time we base our self-image on how we feel, we will run into problems because our feelings change. As long as we feel good, our self-image is good. When we begin to feel bad, however, our self-image plummets. We need to anchor our self-image on something that does not change. Where do we find it? When we become believers, we become new creations in Christ, recreated in His image. The image of Christ in us will never change. Although our outward appearance will change over time, Christ's image in us will stay the same. Like His image, Christ's attitude toward us also will never change. No matter how good or bad we may feel, no matter how up or down we may be, Christ loves us, accepts us, and thinks the world of us. His opinion of us is the only opinion that matters. We should base our self-image on what He thinks about us, not on what others think, or even on what we think about ourselves. ~ Myles Munroe

You're supposed to be made in His image, and yet you're all such ungrateful pieces of filth. You only bow your heads when you want something. ~ Ron Marz

Here is a man who was resigned to his fate, who was walking to the scaffold and about to die like a coward, that's true, but at least he was about to die without resisting and without recriminations. Do you know what gave him that much strength? Do you know what consoled him? It was the fact that another man was to die like him, that another man was to die before him! Put two sheep in the slaughter-house or two oxen in the abattoir and let one of them realize that his companion will not die, and the sheep will bleat with joy, the ox low with pleasure. But man, man whom God made in His image, man to whom God gave this first, this sole, this supreme law, that he should love his neighbour, man to whom God gave a voice to express his thoughts - what is man's first cry when he learns that his neighbour is saved? A curse. All honour to man, the masterpiece of nature, the lord of creation! ~ Alexandre Dumas

You may or may not be aware of it, but you have a dreaming nature. You inherited this part of your disposition from your Creator. He created us in His image and likeness so our hearts could relate to His and His dreaming heart could find millions of expressions. ~ Dutch Sheets

He leaned his head against the wall and closed his eyes, for a moment wanting nothing but to fall asleep and never wake up again, or to do the opposite and kneel, bashing his head against the floor until it was over. But there was still that small sliver of clarity in his mind. He held on to it like a man clinging to a root on the side of a sheer cliff. ~ James Dashner

Because you need me," he said, drawing in his breath as she squirmed against him. "Just as I need you." He crushed his mouth to hers. "I've needed you for years." Another kiss, this one deep and drugging, his tongue searching her intimately ~ Lisa Kleypas

I will be sad. I've gotten very attached to Harry and all that goes on in his world, I guess I'll just be kind of tasting every bit of it because it will be the last one. ~ Mary Grandpre

Getting tired already, minnow?" Toraf taunts as he wraps strong arms around Galen's neck in a choke hold.
Galen promptly flips him forward and onto his back. Toraf bounces once with the force. "You must have been drinking salt water," Galen returns, "to have delusions like that."
Toraf kicks Galen's legs out from under him, and the scuffle is taken to the floor. Just when I wonder how long this can really go on, the older Syrena steps into the dining room and confirms his identity with the authority in his voice. "That's enough. Get up."
Toraf scrambles to his feet and steps away from Galen, who reluctantly complies. "Yes, Highness. Sorry, Highness," Toraf says, breathless. There is not a small amount of shame on Toraf's face.
In fact, even Galen looks conscience stricken. "Apologies, King Antonis," he says quickly. "I didn't see you there."
King Antonis. Mom's dad. My grandfather. Holy!
Antonis lifts his chin, satisfied. "I didn't think so."
Mom steps over the dish debris and embraces her dad. "Thank you for interrupting. It was getting a tad boring. It was obvious no one would win."
Mom is such a dude sometimes. Grom winks at Galen, who shrugs. ~ Anna Banks

He changed his final wad up at the train station. Which was a sad place now. There were homeless people and disturbed people hanging around. There were furtive men with swivel eyes, their hands thrust deep in capacious pockets. There was spray-can graffiti on the walls. Nothing compared to the South Bronx or inner-city Detroit or South-Central LA. But unusual for Germany. Reunification had been a strain. Economically, and socially. And mentally. He had watched it. Like living a comfortable life in a nice little house with your family. And then a whole bunch of relatives moves in. From someplace where they don't really know how to use a knife and fork. Ignorant and stunted people. But German like you. As if a brother had been taken away at birth and locked in a closet. Then in his mid-forties he comes stumbling out again, pale and hunched and blinking. A tough situation to manage. He ~ Lee Child

In any case, Klossowski, mentioned again during Acéphale's sessional meeting of 25 July 1938, would later return to his opposition between Nietzsche and Bataille in a lecture given in 1941 at the end of a retreat in a Dominican monastery, 'Le Corps du néant', later printed in the first edition of his book Sade my Neighbour (1947) and which Bataille later told him he 'does not like'. Here Klossowski recapitulated the two stages in the evolution of Nietzsche's thought outlined in Löwith's essay 'Nietzsche and the doctrine of the Eternal Return', which he had reviewed in Acéphale 2:
1. Liberation from the Christian YOU MUST to achieve the I WANT of supra-nihilism;
2. Liberation from the I WANT to attain the I AM of superhumanity in the eternal return.
It is precisely in this 'cyclical movement', according to Klossowski, that man 'takes on the immeasurable responsibility of the death of God'. Furthermore, he associates Bataille's negation of God with the negation of utility upon which the notion of expenditure was founded, and hence the source of his 'absolute political nihilism'. His conclusion, however, was a little more ambiguous: 'In his desire to relive the Nietzschean experience of the death of God [...] he did not have the privilege [...] of suffering Nietzsche's punishment: the delirium that transfigures the executioner into a victim [...] To be guilty or not to be, that is his dilemma. His acephality expresses only the unease of a guilt in which conscience ~ Georges Bataille

I don't smack him around. I don't yell at him. And if he wants to go to the park in his pajamas, I don't care. ~ Peter Krause

It had been, in Robin's view, the most perfect proposal, ever, in the history of matrimony. He had even had a ring in his pocket, which she was now wearing; a sapphire with two diamonds, it fitted perfectly, and all the way into town she kept staring at it on her hand as it rested on her lap. She and Matthew had a story to tell now, a funny family story, the kind you told your children, in which his planning (she loved that he had planned it) went awry, and turned into something spontaneous. She loved the tramps, and the moon, and Matthew, panicky and flustered, on one knee; she loved Eros, and dirty old Piccadilly, and the black cab they had taken home to Clapham. She ~ Robert Galbraith

The death of 'the god of western theism', the destruction of the idol, is opening the way to a rediscovery of the acts of the God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob, the living God of the worship and confession of the Fathers of the Church, he who makes himself fully known in Jesus Christ, and who in his Word and his Spirit is present and at work throughout the whole of what he has made. ~ A.M. Allchin

Whenever one speaks of lonely people one takes too much for granted. One thinks people all know what they're dealing with. No, they do not. They've never seen a lonely person, they've simply hated him without knowing him. They've been his neighbours who've used him up, they were the voices in the next room who tempted him. They roused things up against him, getting them to make a din and drown him out. Children ganged up against him when he was a tender child, and at every stage of his growing up he grew hostile to grown-ups . They tracked him to his hiding-place like an animal of chase and throughout his long youth there was no closed season. And when he didn't allow himself to be worn out so that he got away they yelled about what came forth from him and called it ugly and were suspicious of it. And as he didn't stop they grew more obvious and gobbled up his food and breathed up his air and spat into his poverty so that he himself became disgusted at it. They brought him into disrepute as if he were a contagion and threw stones at him to speed his departure. And they were right to follow their age-old instinct: because he really was their enemy. But then when he didn't look up they had second thoughts. They suspected that in all of this they had acted as he had willed them to act; they had strengthened him in his solitude and had helped him separate himself from them for ever. ~ Rainer Maria Rilke

Nikolai stroked her cheek, then wrapped her in his embrace. "You're safe," he said tenderly beside her ear. "I've got you, and I'm going to keep you safe. ~ Lara Adrian

The people of Ankh-Morpork had a straightforward, no-nonsense approach to entertainment, and while they were looking forward to seeing a dragon slain, they'd be happy to settle instead for seeing someone being baked alive in his own armour. You didn't get the chance every day to see someone baked alive in their own armour. It would be something for the children to remember. ~ Terry Pratchett

He said, 'Forgive me for being a liar and a fool and an utterly worthless man.' Louise replied, 'I love you.' He took her in his arms for a moment and they held each other with closed eyes. ~ Iris Murdoch

So we have twenty-four hours to keep out of trouble,' he says to me.
I slide a glance in his direction. Judging from the way he's now grimacing at the sidewalk and the fact that I met him in a police station where he was being booked for stealing a car, I'm guessing that staying out of trouble is not his forte. ~ Sarah Alderson

Gray," he whispered in his ear.
Grayson moaned softly in return.
"I'm here for you. I exist only for you. Tell me what you want me to do and I'll do it. ~ Elaine White

You just assaulted the crown prince." He glared, but he saw the tell-tale glimmer of mischief in his eyes. "Vhalla, I think that violates the terms of your probation."

"Oh? Tell me what will you do to me?" She did her best to imitate one of his trademark smirks, and she was rewarded by the spark turning to a fire in his eyes.

"I could think of quite a few things to do to you." His voice was gravely and deep, and Vhalla felt a flush rise to her cheeks. ~ Elise Kova

He realized that he agonized over everything all the time, and he admitted that part of the problem in the Carter game had been his own lack of belief in his abilities. He knew the reason why he was like this, that it was the price he paid for carefully watching out for himself ever since he had been a little boy. 'I've never taken a chance in life,' he said. 'I need to run in front of traffic bucknacked and get arrested. ~ H. G. Bissinger

should go see Steve," he whispered in his ear. "He's out in the parking lot crying. ~ Brent Schlender