Jesus said, “Precisely, the coin bears the image of the emperor Caesar, so you should pay the emperor his portion. But because you bear the image of God, you must give back to God all that belongs to him.” Mark 12:17 TPT
God created His beloved humans in His image and His likeness (Genesis 1:26). We bear the image of God. We belong to Him. We are His coin, to spend as He chooses.
God also created us with a free will. Adam and Eve used that free will to rebel against God and saddle us with a sin nature – the image of man (see Genesis chapters 2). That sin nature constantly seeks its own way. Millions of self-seeking human beings having their own way has created the messy world we live in today. Wounded and hurting people hurting and wounding others.
But God purposed us for greater things! He planned that we should bear His image and His likeness. God knew, before the foundation of the world, that we would need a Savior. We would need Someone to return us to His image. So God Himself came to earth to restore us to His image, in the person of Jesus Christ.
Jesus Christ died on the cross so that we might be restored to God’s image and God’s likeness. Once we accept Jesus, He comes to live inside of us. He grows us from glory to glory (2Cor. 3:18), so that when people look at us, they will see God. As we continually yield to the leading of the Spirit of God, we are like that coin that bears God’s image. We are being spent the way that God chooses. What a comforting thought!