This article is excerpted from Lisa Whittle’s new Bible study, Body and Soul: A Biblical Look at the Whole Person God Created You to Be.

It feels quite significant that the Creator of the universe would choose for us to be made in His likeness. What is imago Dei? Why did God create us in His image? Here are the three ways God created you in His image:

1. For relationship: to connect with Him.

In the Old Testament, the temple was how the Lord dwelt with His people and how He would be close to them on the earth. Then, in the New Testament, God sent His Son to take on flesh, to live as a human with a body.

"My dwelling place will be with them; I will be their God, and they will be my people."

Ezekiel 37:27 CSB

"The Word became flesh and dwelt among us. We observed his glory, the glory as the one and only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth."

John 1:14 CSB

And bringing it up close and personal, incredibly, He created each of us—made our bodies in His image—and upon our salvation/conversion, our bodies become a place where the Spirit of God resides, much like the temple in the Old Testament.

2. For representation: to bear His image to the world.

To be a representative of someone includes relaying that person’s convictions and character to others. A representative is one who is loved and trusted. To ask someone to represent you requires confidence in them and the deposits you’ve made in his or her life to carry out the work. The Lord desires that we, as Christians who bear His image, will bear it well to a lost and dying world. In fact, He commands it.

"Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, since God is making his appeal through us. We plead on Christ’s behalf, '"Be reconciled to God."'

2 Corinthians 5:20 CSB

3. For resemblance: to be personally transformed.

Oh, I love this aspect of being an image bearer so very much. That I can change and be transformed is such a hopeful thought to me.

That I don’t have to live in my body the same as I always have, mainly because I don’t have to be a slave to working on it like I once did. For someone who has been a prisoner to working hard on my body for so many years, it is literally freedom-producing. Instead, I can experience a true heart transformation as I’m conformed to be more and more like Christ.

"Do not lie to one another, since you have put off the old self with its practices and have put on the new self. You are being renewed in knowledge according to the image of your Creator."

Colossians 3:9-10 CSB

When will we see the vastness of being made in the image of God—the grace of it, the beauty of it, the love and kindness of it, the joy and intention of it—and live well within the fullness of it? For so many of us, our mindsets have been narrow in light of the heritage of imago Dei.

Our bodies are waiting for our minds and souls to catch up so we can be treated differently by ourselves. God has been waiting for us to see and hear what He has created us to be and do, not from a place of judgment but from love and desire for us to use our lives for His glory.