"Sorry Gents but God isn't Male"

                                   

 John Calvin, writes in his book “Institutes of the Christian Religion Book I, and I quote “For though the divine glory is displayed in man’s outward appearance, it cannot be doubted that the proper image of God can only be found in Spirit.”   In Calvin’s eyes we were created man and women, yet God is Spirit and we are one in Spirit with God. 

In Galatians 3:28 We hear the Apostle Paul stating:    There is neither Jew nor Gentile, 
neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ 
Jesus. We are of one mind, body and one spirit.  When discussing man being made in the 
image and likeness of God we need to understand Genesis 1:26 -27 {Good News} Then God said, “And now we will make human beings; they will be like us and resemble us. They will have power over the fish, the birds, and all animals, domestic andwild, large and small.”  So God created human beings, making them to be like himself.  He created them male and female.  

May I suggest we need to comprehend just how important a good understanding of this truth is. We need to have a  clear understanding that both male and female, were made equally and made to be like God.   Equality here does not mean that our bodies would be equal in proportion, nor does it mean that our physical strength would be equal for we were made to be different each with special qualities.  What it does mean is that all aspects of our spirit are the same and they are equal in every way.  Our human orientation {sexuality, race, or color } has no place in this equality.   In order to be like God and in the image of God we would need to have within our human physical bodies something of God.  That something is our spirit, something that is equal in all aspects of equality and is eternal. I believe that is what the writer meant when he says we are made in the image and likeness of God.  The continual use of a male reference within the scriptures makes it far to easy for men to discount the female as somehow inferior.  The use of the Parental name Father was never meant for that purpose.  This interpretation of the scriptures has been a problem over the centuries and continues to be in many modern day religious teachings, Christianity included.    Sorry gentlemen but God is not a man.  Sorry ladies but God is not a woman either.   Therefore God being neither male nor female but SPIRIT, God then can represent for us an all-encompassing parent, from whom we have inherited our Parent attributes which include love, forgiveness, humility, compassion, peace, joy, justice and hope.  All these inherit attributes need cultivation. That is why we were given the word both in print and in flesh which in turn develops gratitude.  Gratitude becomes the soil which cultivates faith.  We were made human, but with a Spirit in likeness and in the image of God’s all-encompassing love.   This is what makes you so precious in God’s eyes.  Here is why I believe God will never for sake or leave you.  It is because of your spirit, which is the God factor in you.   If this were not so, how then could the Spirit in you fulfil the great commandment to love its neighbor as itself?   Who is your spirits neighbor?  Your humanness, your human nature and your physical body.  Your spirit wants you to love and respect it just as the Spirit loves itself "the God in you" Without the Spirits attribute of humility, you would not have the power or the strength to love your human nature and your physical self without falling prey to EGO.  Folks do things to build up the Spirit in you.  Jesus said in John 4:24  “God is Spirit,”  . Throughout the Old Testament, the Spirit of 
God repeatedly appears, beginning in Genesis 1:2  and let us be clear it does not say He or 

She hovered over the waters, it states The "Spirit" of God hovered over the waters.  
The Spirit that give life is ignited in ordinary people, anointing them to act as God’s voice, to 
speak out for injustice among the poor and marginalized.  To act as God’s hands as we 
serve one another with love and compassion and to act as God’s feet as we spread his 
attributes all over our world.   We can hear this in 2 Samuel 23:2). and I quote “ The spirit 
of the Lord spoke through me; his word was on my tongue”.    Through God’s Spirit, 
the way is shown to us, the plans, purposes and desires of God are revealed to us, then 
through us to others. When God created humanity in Genesis 1:26-27, God set us apart as unique among all creation.  In doing so, he also gave us a spirit .  At conception we are given life, we do not know exactly how, as stated in Ecclesiastes 11:5.“ As you do not know the path of the wind or how the body is formed in a mother’s womb, you cannot understand the work of God, the maker of all things.”   

 We are given a physical body, it comes with the gift of life and yet it cannot be the

 image of God, for it returns to the dust from which it was formed.  Yet we were created

 in Spirit and it is that which lives forever and returns to its source.  Again in Ecclesiastes

 12: 7 We hear “ and the dust returns to the ground it come from, and the spirit

 returns to God who gave it”   We are spiritual beings temporally housed in an earthly

 body.   We were given an eternal spirit that will never die.  Thanks be to God.   

Here is what can happen if God's Spirit gets ignited in you!

Take time to Pray!