God had already put in a solid days work on day five. Creating all of the bugs and animals would have been enough for anyone else to call it a day, but God wasn't done.
"Then God said, 'Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; and let them rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over the cattle and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.' God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them."
Man was not an after thought, an add on, or an evolutionary being from a lower organism. Man was intentionally made in the image and likeness of God. What's interesting is that if you study the Hebrew, the word Image, tselem is a masculine noun, and likeness, dĕmuwth is feminine. Bearing the image of God carries the meaning of being a representative figure, holding a measure of power and authority on behalf of the one you represent. To be made in the likeness of God is to bear a resemblance to God. Power and beauty are the two things that are present here.
Man was made in the image of God to bear the likeness of God to creation. He was placed in a position to over the rest of creation, not to dominate creation, but to protect, nurture, and cultivate the rest of the world. All people, both men and women, are made in the image of God. One gender is not better than the other, but more on this in the near future.
Man was made in the image of God, and therefore man is a sacred thing. Man has value and worth because man bears the image of God. Man is the dominate species on this planet not because he evolved to a point of advancement above everything thing else, but because God placed him in authority to care for everything else. Man's position of power is not so that he can strip the earth of everything it has to offer, hunt animals to extinction, and dominate those that are left, but to care for the earth and all its inhabitants, faithfully fulfilling the charge given to us by the creator.
Let us see ourselves as we truly are, image bearers of the almighty, put on this planet to represent Him before the rest of creation, and charged with the care of the world.
Fight the lion, 1 Peter 5.1-11
TO GOD ALONE BE THE GLORY!
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