THE IMAGE IN THE ACTION

       Pick up an acorn...if you can find one. Not a very imposing sight, is it? About the size of the tip of your little finger... a little collar at the bottom... a smooth oval shape at the top.... brown or green, depending on its age... a sharp point at the tip. Altogether, an underwhelming sight.

       Except for this truth, you could completely dismiss an acorn as insignificant... "And God said, 'Let the earth bring forth sproutage, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit after his kind, whose seed is in itself upon the earth. And it was so. And the earth brought forth vegetation, and herb yielding seed after its kind, and the tree yielding fruit, whose seed was in itself after his kind..." (Genesis 1:11-12)

       Suddenly, the acorn takes on real significance. What you are holding in your hand is not merely a tiny, unimpressive bit of matter, but you are holding in your hand a DNA repository containing an image that no human being, including Sampson, could hold after a few short years. While you can toss the acorn from one hand to the next, or throw it some distance from yourself in its present state, you could not possibly move it in its final state. What you are holding has within itself the total image of a tree that might live a hundred and fifty years, reach 60-70 feet in height, with branches that will cover a house, a trunk that you could ride a bike around or hide behind, nail steps to, or hang a swing from its branches.

       Pick up a flower seed, an onion seed, an apple seed, or an orange seed. Now remind yourself that because of God's command, you are looking not at the end result, but at that which in itself contains the end result... the image is in the seed.

       What you behold at the present, while totally insignificant, bears little relation to the truth. Looking at an apple as has been said, "You can count the number of seeds in an apple, but only God can count the number of apples in a seed." What will be produced is the image contained in the seed.

       Now hear this... And God said, "'Let us make man in our image, after our likeness; and let them have dominion..." so God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them. And God blessed them, and said unto them, "Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion..." And it was so. (Genesis 1:26-28)

       Consider this. "Let us make man in our image, after our likeness...". God... created man in his own image...male and female created He them. And... "said unto them, be fruitful and multiply...". If the image in the acorn is of an oak tree, what image is in us? If we are made in the image and likeness of the Creator of the universe, then the image that we are to produce is vastly different from what is seen with the natural eye. An acorn does not produce a larger acorn. It produces the image contained within it.

       Every animal and plant has seed that produces after its own kind, man has seed that produces after his kind (we call our children our "seed"); therefore, what hath God wrought with us? What does God expect of us? All things being equal, flowers produce flowers...apple trees produce apples... oak trees produce acorns... and acorns produce the image in the acorn - oak trees.

       And God said, "Let us make man in our image and after our likeness". And man brought forth.... ?