Being human means being created in the image of God. While being created in God’s image means being rational and free, that is not all it means. Being created in God’s image means having an affinity with God, not a natural affinity but one granted by God and by which we can know Him and have some kind of communion with Him. Put more exactly, being in the image of God means being able to pray.

One of the aspects of the language of images is that images are not just likenesses or pictures, but derived from an original. An   image of God is derived from God, it manifests Him as a kind of theophany. The purpose of an image is to enable others to recognize the original and to draw them to the original. If one understands image in this sense, then the whole of John’s Gospel is concerned with the image: the Son imaging forth the Father, so that Christ can say to Philip, “He who has seen me has seen the Father.”

If we are truly made in God’s image which is manifested in the Person of Jesus Christ, then we are called to put on the mind of Christ. We must realize that being made in the image of Jesus and called to grow in His likeness, we are called to become like Him in mind, heart and soul. It means growing in our awareness of the meaning and purpose of life.

It seems to be obvious that the meaning and purpose of God’s creation is to bear witness to His profound glory and wisdom. This would suggest that the only way that we can grow in His likeness is to make every attempt to adopt Jesus’ way of thinking about creation. To do this, we must make every attempt to “put on the MIND of CHRIST.”

So the questions that result from this are: How do I acquire the mind of Christ? What do I have to do in order to achieve this goal?

There are several steps. First, we must discover the mind of Christ and come to an understanding of what He thought about God’s creation. Second, we must assess how we think about creation and see how close we are to how Jesus thought about it. And then we must challenge ourselves to start thinking about God’s creation in the way that Jesus did. This, of course, means engaging in a constant assessment of how well we are imitating the attitudes of Jesus Christ.