“To him be honor and eternal dominion.”

1 John 4:7-8 says, “Dear friends, let us love one another, because love is from God, and everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. The one who does not love does not know God, because God is love.”

We were created from the beginning as beloved children of God made to express God's love in the world.

I love the way Genesis 1:26-27 is paraphrased in the Action Bible, “They [Adam and Eve] were the greatest of all God's creations because He made them in His own image, to be a reflection of what He is like.”

We are to be the bearers of His image in the world – receiving His love and giving it away to all we come in contact with. So here's a little poem I wrote about this as I was meditating on the scriptures in Genesis 1 & 5:

God created humans after His kind

According to His likeness, to be fruitful and multiply

He gave them dominion, to tend all He had made

Set them in place to seek His face

To walk with Him in the cool of the day

and freely give His love away.

God created humans after His kind

In His very own image, with procreation in mind

In His eyes, we are of infinite worth.

To be an expression of His love in the earth

He calls us His children, bearing His name

To spread His love, and share in His fate.

From the beginning, God gave us dominion to serve, tend and care for all He made. What happened in the fall was that our picture of what dominion looked like became corrupted. What was 'exceedingly good' naturally became full of sin.

He told Adam and Eve what ways the corruption of sin would bring death... God tells them in Genesis 3:16-19 that life would be birthed only out of tremendous pain, that there would be lust, and a desire to rule over rather than serve. He goes on to tell Adam that his labors would be filled with striving and effort.

Rather than taking dominion as something that is positive and full of life, with the corruption of sin, it becomes oppressive and diminishing. Sin corrupted these natural motives and a desire to exalt oneself in taking dominion out of pride, confidence, lust, fear and self interest was birthed. Examples of very corrupted taking dominion is slavery, dictatorships based on fear, and sex trafficking.

When we love others, we bear God's image in the world. We were intended to be an expression of God in the world that is loving, meek, gentle, kind and full of mercy. We take dominion by humbling ourselves, coming under, caring for and empowering others. We lay down our lives and sacrifice so that they may have life.

I don't know where I got it from, but I have this quote in my journal: “He became not he exaltation of self but the expression of love.”

Jesus came into a world that is corrupted with 7wrong desires, power, self effort and striving. In the midst of it, He showed us what God had in mind from the beginning and what it looked like to take dominion. He took twelve disciples that he trained and empowered. He poured His life into them. And He used His power to speak life and give life to all He came in contact with.

Rather than over-run the Romans as the Jews had hoped He would do, He taught them about a freedom and joy they could have right in the midst of difficult circumstances. He served us with compassion and mercy. He humbled Himself as a servant and washed the feet of those He had been given authority over – and then called them to do the same. Then He demonstrated the greatest act of love as He sacrificed Himself for us in love, for the joy set before Him (our best interests in mind).

1 John 4:9-11 goes on to say, “God's love was revealed among us in this way: God sent His One and Only Son into the world so that we might live though Him. Love consists in this: not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Dear friends, if God loved us in this way, we also must love one another.

Love is at the core of rightly ordered dominion. Our expressing God's love is our taking dominion in this world. When we fail to love and we lead or take authority out of any other motive, taking dominion is corrupted.

I just started reading a book on power. The author notes, “Power is for flourishing – teeming, fruitful, multiplying abundance. Power creates and shapes an environment where creatures can flourish, making room for the variety, diversity and unpredictability... The image bearers do not exist for their own flourishing alone, but to bring the whole creation into it's fulfillment.”[1]

When we express God's love, we express who He is to the world around us. 1 John 4:12 says, “No one has ever seen God. If we love one another, God remains in us and His love is perfected [made complete] in us.”

God had a plan for us from the beginning to bear His image in the world. To demonstrate who He is by freely giving His love away to those around us and through self-sacrifice, caring for all that He created. And just like it was in the garden, we come to know God and be like Him through remaining in His love and sharing it with those around us. And by sharing it with others, they come to know Him as well.

1 John … says, “God is love, and the one who remains in love remains in God, and God remains in him. In this, love is perfected with us so that we may have confidence in the day of judgment for we are as He is in the world. There is no fear in love; instead, perfect love drives out fear, because fear involves punishment. So the one who fears has not reached perfection in love. We love because He first loved us.”

When Jesus returns, we will see the full picture of what rightly ordered dominion looks like. He will put an end to disordered power and dominion.

Revelation 17:1-5, 18 says, Then one of the seven angels who had the seven bowls came and said to me, “Come, I will show you the judgment of the great prostitute who is seated on many waters, with whom the kings of the earth have committed sexual immorality, and with the wine of whose sexual immorality the dwellers on earth have become drunk.” And he carried me away in the Spirit into a wilderness, and I saw a woman sitting on a scarlet beast that was full of blasphemous names, and it had seven heads and ten horns. The woman was arrayed in purple and scarlet, and adorned with gold and jewels and pearls, holding in her hand a golden cup full of abominations and the impurities of her sexual immorality. And on her forehead was written a name of mystery: “Babylon the great, mother of prostitutes and of earth's abominations.... And the woman that you saw is the great city that has dominion over the kings of the earth.”

The earth will flourish with life, all fear and sin will be washed away in His perfect love. All the pain from the corruption of sin and disordered power will be wiped away in His mercy.

Revelation 21:24 says, “He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death' or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away."

Lord, forgive me where ever I have used power that was rooted in sin. Help us to look more like you. Let us be your image bearers in the world and reflect your love to all around us. We long for the day that Your dominion is fully expressed on the earth. 

"Now to Him who is able to keep you from stumbling, and to present you faultless
Before the presence of His glory with exceeding joy, To God our Savior, Who alone is wise, Be glory and majesty, Dominion and power, Both now and forever. Amen." (Jude 24:25)

1. Crouch, Andy. Playing God: Redeeming the Gift of Power. InterVarsity Press. Downers Grove, IL. 2013