Series 1 - Lesson 2 - Annotation 4
Since we are the offspring of God, why have we appeared to be unlike Him?
A. Even though man is the offspring of God, he has appeared to be unlike Him because he has not built a consciousness of the image of perfection in which he is created.
God is the only Creator, but as the image-likeness of God, man has the power to reproduce in the earth whatever God has created in the heavens. As God is unlimited freedom in the spiritual state of being, so His son has unlimited freedom to act in the earthly or formed realm. Man's "business" as God's son, His representative, is to express and manifest the God nature, thus to make Absolute Good known in the earth even as it is known in the heavens. "Thy kingdom come ... in earth, as it is in heaven" (the Lord's Prayer). Man's "business" is to represent (or to present) God in his soul, body, and affairs.
Because man has not lived consciously at the center of his being where Spirit, as life and intelligence, dwells in him, he has formed many misconceptions. Through the false use or misuse of his power to conceive images, he has looked at effects and called them causes. That which is unlike God, instead of that which is His likeness, has been produced. God does not compel man to use ideas in the right way — that is, according to His law of universal good. However, each person is essentially spiritual, and the potential is within him to claim eventually his full inheritance of divinity. Because his divine nature is made up of God-ideas, the individual can learn to use ideas wisely, thus expressing and manifesting more and more of God.
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Preceding Entry: What reason have we for believing in health as our birthright?
Following Entry: What is forgiveness of sin?
