God is the ultimate reality of the universe, and He exists in perfect relationship. The Father, Son, and Holy Spirit enjoy perfect intimacy and perfect impact in relationship with each other. God is so “into” relationship that He created you in His image, male or female, to be able to enjoy Him and others.
Male image-bearers are created to relate uniquely to God and others in a way that manifests the “Incarnational Presence” of God – the God who perfectly “Pursues” us into relationship with Himself. Males are uniquely built to express the relational strength of God. He is “FOR” us.
Female image-bearers are created to relate uniquely to God and others in a way that manifests the “Invitational Presence” of God – the God who “Woos” us into relationship with Himself. Females are uniquely built to express the relational beauty of God. He is “WITH” us.
As either a male or female image-bearer you were made for love – to love God and one another. As the Father longs after us as His sons and daughters, so we, too, long for deeply satisfying, harmonious relationships with Him and our fellow image-bearers. True masculine and feminine “LIFE” is found only in dependent connectedness to the Heavenly Father – being at Home in His loving Embrace. Our divine calling is to live life in His embrace, and then to love others from His embrace, according to the unique dignity of our design and nobility of our destiny as male or female.
The Father Tells Us
From one man he made all the nations, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he marked out their appointed times in history and the boundaries of their lands. God did this so that they would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from any one of us. ‘For in him we live and move and have our being.’ As some of your own poets have said, ‘We are his offspring.’
Acts 17:26-28
Yet for us there is but one God, the Father, from whom all things came and for whom we live; and there is but one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom all things came and through whom we live.
I Corinthians 8:6
“And I will be your Father, and you will be my sons and daughters, says the LORD Almighty.”
II Corinthians 6:18
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26 Then God said, “Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals,[a]and over all the creatures that move along the ground.”
27 So God created mankind in his own image,
in the image of God he created them;
male and female he created them.
28 God blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky and over every living creature that moves on the ground.”
29 Then God said, “I give you every seed-bearing plant on the face of the whole earth and every tree that has fruit with seed in it. They will be yours for food. 30 And to all the beasts of the earth and all the birds in the sky and all the creatures that move along the ground—everything that has the breath of lifein it—I give every green plant for food.” And it was so.
31 God saw all that he had made, and it was very good. And there was evening, and there was morning—the sixth day.
2 Thus the heavens and the earth were completed in all their vast array.
2 By the seventh day God had finished the work he had been doing; so on the seventh day he rested from all his work. 3 Then God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it he rested from all the work of creating that he had done.
Adam and Eve
4 This is the account of the heavens and the earth when they were created, when the Lord God made the earth and the heavens.
5 Now no shrub had yet appeared on the earth[b] and no plant had yet sprung up, for the Lord God had not sent rain on the earth and there was no one to work the ground, 6 but streams[c] came up from the earth and watered the whole surface of the ground.7 Then the Lord God formed a man[d] from the dust of the groundand breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being.
8 Now the Lord God had planted a garden in the east, in Eden; and there he put the man he had formed. 9 The Lord God made all kinds of trees grow out of the ground—trees that were pleasing to the eye and good for food. In the middle of the garden were the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
10 A river watering the garden flowed from Eden; from there it was separated into four headwaters. 11 The name of the first is the Pishon; it winds through the entire land of Havilah, where there is gold. 12 (The gold of that land is good; aromatic resin[e] and onyx are also there.) 13 The name of the second river is the Gihon; it winds through the entire land of Cush.[f] 14 The name of the third river is the Tigris; it runs along the east side of Ashur. And the fourth river is the Euphrates.
15 The Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Edento work it and take care of it. 16 And the Lord God commanded the man, “You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; 17 but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat from it you will certainly die.”
18 The Lord God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him.”
19 Now the Lord God had formed out of the ground all the wild animals and all the birds in the sky. He brought them to the man to see what he would name them; and whatever the man called each living creature, that was its name. 20 So the man gave names to all the livestock, the birds in the sky and all the wild animals.
But for Adam[g] no suitable helper was found. 21 So the Lord God caused the man to fall into a deep sleep; and while he was sleeping, he took one of the man’s ribs[h] and then closed up the place with flesh. 22 Then the Lord God made a woman from the rib[i] he had taken out of the man, and he brought her to the man.
23 The man said,
“This is now bone of my bones
and flesh of my flesh;
she shall be called ‘woman,’
for she was taken out of man.”
24 That is why a man leaves his father and mother and is united to his wife, and they become one flesh.
25 Adam and his wife were both naked, and they felt no shame.