What Does it Mean to be Created to Create?

The creation story is an amazing account of how God created the heavens and the earth. We all have different questions about this story but there’s one that seems to be pretty common. “What does it mean to be created to create?”

This question is especially common among Christian youth who have creative abilities. In this post, we take a deep dive into the creation story. This will help us unravel the mystery that holds the key to our creativity.

Explaining the term “create”

The bible begins with an interesting sentence, “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.” One word in that sentence makes the whole difference based on the question that we seek to answer, “created.” This brings us to an important question, “what does it mean to create?”

Different schools of thought have presented us with different definitions of this interesting word. Let’s look at a few of these definitions.

According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, to create means to “bring into existence.” It also means the act of “causing to exist,” “producing,” or “to produce using imaginative skill.”

With this understanding, we have a solid foundation to help us answer the question behind this post.

Created in the “Image and Likeness of God”

An interesting aspect of the creation story is revealed in Genesis 1: 26. Here, the bible records a conversation God has with the Trinity. “And God said, let us create man in our image and likeness.”

In other words, let us bring into existence a being called man that will have our physical attributes and abilities. It is easy to accept that we have the physical attributes of God or “Imago Dei.” However, where the problem is for most Christians is accepting that we carry the nature of God as well.

The word “likeness” means “spiritual or internal personality.” What this means is that we do not just look like God, we have His nature within us. A proof of this is found in Genesis 2: 7 where God breathed into man after forming him. That breath signifies a transfer of the nature of God into man’s physical body. 

As a result of this, we have been infused with the innate ability to create. The same ability that God exercised in creating the heavens and the earth. No wonder the Bible refers to us as gods in Psalms 82: 6. Now, let’s look at the attributes that make us creators.

Attributes That We Share With God

It is imperative to note that while we share in God’s nature and attributes, we don’t carry them to full capacity. There are certain attributes that we share with God that show the ability to create. These attributes are regarded as communicable attributes and we will enumerate some of them in this section:

Knowledge

The bible mentions in several parts of the scripture that God has endowed man with knowledge. Twice in Exodus, it talks about filling man with God’s Spirit in wisdom, understanding, and knowledge. While knowledge gives us the opportunity to know God, it also helps us to be creative.

In Job, the bible also talks about the fact that there is a spirit in man which is the inspiration of God. It is this spirit that gives man understanding and knowledge. Without knowledge, it is impossible to be creative. We have knowledge in abundance because we have God’s Spirit inside of us.

Reason

We don’t just have the knowledge, we have the ability to reason. What this means is that we know what to do with the knowledge that we have. Having knowledge is one thing, knowing what to do with it is another.

The reason that we have is also a function of God’s Spirit. It is this reason that allows us to think in a logical manner. This ability to reason also makes it possible to harness the skills needed to utilize the knowledge we have. Without the ability to reason, we will have knowledge in its potential state. 

Dominion

When God said “let us make man,” He also decided what man should do. One of the things that God said was that man should have dominion. This dominion requires man to impose himself on his immediate environment to cause change.

It was this same dominion that God exercised when He created the earth and everything in it. The dominion that man received allows man to conceive an idea in his heart and implement it. We have our spheres of influence where we can exert this dominion. By dominating the earth, we exert the force of our creativity to make things happen just the way we want.

Created to Create

“Let your light so shine among men that they may see your good works (Matthew 5: 16).”  When Jesus Christ said that we should let our light so shine, He was referring to our innate ability. We were designed by God to create good things so that men can see them and glorify Him.

Remember that every time God created something, He looked at it and saw that it was good. The original design was that we will utilize the same ability to create good things. Like Father, like children. 

You were not created to just occupy space, you were created to fill a void, a vacuum. Each one of us is unique with special abilities and a specific purpose. This means that there is an assignment for you to fulfill with the gifts that you were blessed with. It is high time you started using those gifts to create what will bring God glory.

Just like God asked Moses, “what is in your hands?” Your gift is your weapon, it is your tool. It is time to use it to bring glory to God by creating solutions to problems. Don’t let it lie fallow, fan it to flames so that it begins to yield profit to God and His kingdom.