When you lose something it is often a good idea to retrace your steps in order to find what you lost. Fallen man has lost his way. We don’t know who we are anymore, nor what we are to be doing. Who are we, and what are we doing here? Natural man has many unsatisfying answers to those questions. How can we retrace our steps and find where we lost our way? Well, let’s go back to the beginning, back to the owner’s manual for human life, back to Genesis.
Who are we? “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness” (Genesis 1:26). We are made like God, and to like God. We are created to know God, walk and talk with him, and reflect his glory. That is who we are – the children of God.
What are we supposed to be doing? “And let them have dominion …over all the earth… Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it (Genesis 1:26, 28). We are to rule over the earth for the glory of God. How do we do that? By multiplying the image of God and extending the rule of God from Eden to the ends of the earth.
Ok, that is the general principle, but how do we practically do that? Grow in the fear and knowledge of God, keep your garden well, raise your kids to know and love God, extend the gracious rule of God to fill the earth with the image of God that reflects the glory of God.
Let me try that again, updated for our moment of redemptive history. Go to church, raise your family, invest in your extended family, love your neighbors well, work at your job to the best of your ability for the glory of God, support the Great Commission, and walk with God in the garden in the cool of the day. That is what we are to be doing.
The Christian life is both simple and comprehensive. We do all that we do for the glory of God. As you do, know this encouragement from our Lord Jesus Christ, “behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age” (Matthew 28:20).