Alrighty then, let's have a look in Genesis, Chapter 1, Verse 26: Then God said: let us make man as a little bug. [Laughter] He didn't say that did He? An insect - no, a worm. He didn't say any of that. What did He say? Let us make man in our image, according to our likeness, and let them have dominion. God made man in His own image, a reflection of what He is like: loving, expressive, passionate, full of dreams, creative. That's what He made us to be like! You say I'm not like that. Change! You're living below what you're designed to do. Come on, you've got to continually go back to the standard God set, first when He did it first, and secondly, when we look at Jesus Christ who is the only standard. Most people look at someone else and say I'm doing better than them, I must be alright. Don't use that.
Notice this, it says: He made us in His image and likeness. God made you with emotions. He put emotions in you, so you've got some men are pretty staunch! Too bad, you're real broken up you know. You can't live life like you're supposed to. There's something wrong in you, you're damaged. Staunch is a fig leaf to cover what's wrong. God is a passionate God. Jesus loved, Jesus wept, Jesus was angry, Jesus had all the range of emotions. If you hunt through the Bible, you'll find God's got things He loves, things He hates, things get Him riled up, things that touch His heart. He has compassion, He has anger, He has all range of emotions, and He's real happy to express them. He designed you, not only as a spirit being capable of working and living and moving in the dimension of the spirit; He designed us to represent what He's like, so if your emotions are messed up, you cannot represent properly what God is like. How can you?
You will reinforce the image most people have, that God is cold and unemotional, instead of loving and passionate. So we have to not be driven or out of control in our emotions, but understand they have a part of expressing who we are as people, as God has designed us. God has caused you to be creative - you say well I'm not the creative type. The moment I use the word creative, you will automatically think of someone who does art or makes craft - oh, they're creative. You have put a mindset that limited creativity. Is it true that God is creative? You're made in His image? By design you are creative. Now whether you are creative in your expression, has a lot to do with whether we're functioning right, see? Now if I'm not functioning right, I won't express creativity.
Listen, I'll show you how - we'll get onto it a bit another time, but let me just give you the tip on this one. Whatever God gifted you to do, He will enable you to be creative in that area, see? In other words, to come up with ideas that others haven't thought of, but of course if you're full of shame, you'll want to copy what everyone else wants, and you won't want to be different. That's why we've got to deal with the lies of shame, so we can actually dare to be different, dare to be ourself, dare to be creative. Creative people say: oh, I've got a great new way of doing that! Shameful people say: we've never done it that way before. They shut down the creative gift. We've got to stop that. We've got to actually make room for the expression of the gifts and creativity that people have in their life, and that's why you've got to deal with shame, because shame will shut it down as we'll see in a moment. I'll tell you what it does, I'll tell you two major things it does to us, and then we've got to work on how to get out of that, and be what God called us to be, Amen.
So God has emotions given expression, we're designed to represent Him. We're designed to represent that God is a good God, so when people see you, do they see in your life God is really good? God is good, He is good. Here's the second thing that the Bible tells us very clearly there: notice in Chapter 1, Verse 31, when God saw everything He'd made, indeed it was very good. So when God looks at you, what does He see? Very good, ooh very good! Whoa! Like those lions are pretty good, but look at this man I've made! Whoa! Very good! See? Those fish - well the fish are pretty good, but oh look at the man I've made, very, very, very good! God's basic looking at you, is that you reflect what He's like. You're very, very good. The core of your identity is I am very, very good. Why am I good? Not because I'm doing good things - because I'm made in the image of someone who's really good. But you see already I can feel it rising up: what about sin? What about, you know, all have sinned?