Refelction_on_Pope_John_Paul_Ii_Christian_Anthropology

Then God said, "Let us make man in our image, in our likeness"...So God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them. Genesis 1:26a, 27. This is a fundamental truth, but many of us question the meaning of “Man is the image of God”. It is very difficult to explain, but essentially it entails the idea that image is not to be found in the structure of human personality or in our functions or relationships, but rather is a goal. Being created in the image of God is not a state or condition but a movement with a goal. God sent us in this world to have our own purpose and to find purpose. We are an image, in the sense that we are a 'reflection' of God. Like our reflection in a mirror, the image is not an exact duplicate of ourselves, but it resembles us. It is not us in the mirror, but a likeness. We have qualities, reflected in finite terms, of the God who created us. This gift to us is a tremendous gift, and it enables us to seek and to commune with Him. But we have also had a nature to us that is unique. We have been given the gift of God's image, and this is evident in our ability to reflect some of the traits of God. God is supreme over all. He placed us a little lower, and gave us dominion over all other living things. He is Spirit, and we have the notion of a spirit within us, that gives us self awareness and enables deeper needs such as love, relationships, etc. He is life, and He gave us life, in a mortal sense. It will end, and this issue, perhaps over all the others, draws us toward the life giver. He is the Standard of the universe, and He has placed into us a sense of this. Our sense of right and wrong, happy and sad, purpose and non-purpose all reflect the universal standard. When we realize the importance of this gift of God, we realize the significance we have in His sight. We are indeed the crowning achievement of His creation. The fact that He entrusted to us a glimpse of Himself ensures every person's right to feel special, needed, loved, and to be treated as such. With God all of mankind is equal, and special. No particular person has a higher place with God than any other. The image of God we have ensures our significance in His sight, and explains the reason why He is reaching out to us, through Christ, to fix the effects of our turning away from Him and rejoin our appropriate place which is in communion with Him. It is only with Christianity that man has a purpose external to himself, and that all men and women are equal. As we live our life in this world, we should always remember on how to attain self-fulfillment through giving ourselves to others. Not our physical self but our honest and good intentions to others. That man’s true happiness cannot be found into something but to the man who pleases God, God gives wisdom, knowledge and happiness, but to the sinner he gives the task of gathering and storing up wealth to hand it over to the one who pleases God. This too is meaningless, a chasing after the wind (Ecclesiastes 2:26). Many people have their own believes about life’s fulfillments These people believe that fulfillment can come by divorce, rebellion, abortion, use of drugs and alcohol, smoking, cheating, lying, and any other activity or way of thinking that may falsely promote a "sense of fulfillment" that is ungodly. They perpetuate dependence on fleeting moments of "joy" and "pleasure" and destroy the integrity and sense of responsibility and accountability in each other. They destroy your vision and your opportunities for growth and self-actualization. In other words, these things damage relationships—they are roadblocks to the very thing that will bring us true fulfillment in God’s Kingdom. God wanted us to find fulfillment through others that is by giving ourselves to others, by means of helping and reaching people and doing good, and just.