It’s taken me a while to believe it, and if I’m completely honest, I’m not sure I believe it now. Maybe instead of belief, I should say that I’m coming to believe. Or, at least, trying to.

The Bible tells us that humanity was created in love and through love. We were not only created in the image of God; God even breathed into us. The Bible tells me that I am God’s masterpiece (Ephesians 2:10).

Maybe someone has been in your home and said if you remove a wall, or add a deck or landscape the yard, how amazing the house would be. You see it as well. Yes, everything they said was true. Your house could be a showplace. A masterpiece of beauty. It’s hard to believe.

You know it’s going to take work. Remodels don’t happen overnight. You may have a vision, maybe even a blueprint, of what your house could be; however, it’s hard to believe such transformation will ever take place.

You decide to move forward. The process is messy. Some days you can see the vision coming into view, but other times, when obstacles and setbacks cause the progress to crawl along, you wonder if a beautiful home is possible.

That’s how I feel. Genesis paints a beautiful picture of who we are, but then the picture darkens. We read about those created in love, turning their backs on love. Instead, they chose a different path.

Loving and trusting God was set aside in favor of love of Self. God’s desire was replaced with the Self’s desires. Looking to the One who created all as God was replaced with looking to oneself as God.

There were repercussions of this choice. God’s masterpiece was marred. Yet, God’s image was still in place. God loved his creation. The founding form God placed within humanity, that original blueprint, didn’t leave, but now a counterfeit form of life had taken hold.

Ego, believing that self could replace God, was at the center of all decisions. At times things seemed good, but something was different. Something was missing. Instead of peace, there was restlessness, dissonance instead of harmony.

All was not lost. God still loved humanity. That’s what God does and that is who He is. His love caused him to enter into our world to love and show what love looks like. But the world created by that love didn’t want anything to do with that love.

So, we killed it.

But God’s kind of love doesn’t die. Death has no power over that kind of love. Death couldn’t stop God’s love.

Rather than dying, God’s love invites. It always has. Invitations require a response. In other words, we must choose. The first choice was the wrong choice. Hopefully we can see that now. Even when we do, we continue to choose self over God, sin over life.

Just like our kitchens, bathrooms, or homes, no matter how bad they get, there’s hope. There’s still a vision, not of what they are, but of what they could be.
The one who created it all, and was then rejected, hasn’t given up on us. He came into our world so that we would know we are invited into amazing love and life.

It can be hard believing our remodeling project could ever become a reality. I see God’s invitation, the vision for me and others, and, quite frankly, it seems impossible. Nevertheless, I’m leaning into the vision God has for me and for my life. I hope you lean into the vision God has for you.

We gravitate toward the ego-driven counterfeit pride form, so it’s hard to see how we could ever be a masterpiece, let alone God’s masterpiece. In love, God draws us toward our Christ-form, the true form we are called to bear. Because of Jesus, who loved us, died, and rose again, we can be reformed and transformed into who we truly are, God’s beautiful masterpiece.