Imago Dei by Denise Falk

Modern psychology suggests that creativity is defined as either innovative or adaptive and that we can find ourselves somewhere along a scaled continuum within the normal distribution of a bell-shaped curve. I think we can go deeper than a statistical explanation though, for we can define our creativity from its source, through our Creator. Jesus is the creator of life, the originator of innovative creativity and the author of adaptive creativity that is evidenced in creation, in the plan of salvation, and in the patterning of renewal into His likeness.

Genesis tells us that Jesus created the heavens and the earth, and all that was within it, and it was perfect. Jesus is the innovative creator, creating something from nothing. He created a brand-new thing. Jesus is the one and only, the original, for only He can create something from nothing.

After the fall, Jesus loved us enough to create a way of redemption. Jesus took his perfect innovative creation and crafted the concept of redemption, an adaptation of his original plan of perfection, so we could reunite with Him. 

Salvation is the by-product of Jesus’ adaptive creativity, fixing what we broke, and in doing so, he continues to make all things new. Jesus is the authentic adaptive creator, and he calls us to a life of faith where we worship Him with expressions of his adaptive love, because the cost of adapting perfection to offer us a path of salvation cost him everything.

By faith, we take up our cross daily and follow Him. We present our lives in an act of worship to be transformed into His likeness. This is the process of renewing. The Word calls us to continually renew our minds, our hearts, our thoughts through Him, daily. Its how we grow and how we are made new each day.

As Paul shares with the Romans, “do not be conformed to this world, but to the renewing of your mind...” (Romans 12:2), and to the Colossians he writes that we are to “put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge and in the image of its creator” (Colossians 3:10). Paul also teaches the believers in Corinth “… we all, who with unveiled faces contemplate the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into his image with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit” (2 Cor 3:18). The process of renewing is the fuel for our relationship with Jesus, it is the energy that powers our faith. Our entire identity in Christ is the living embodiment of adaptive creativity. Despite our sin, our rejection of the truth, the Lord made a way for us to be continually transformed by his presence, to be made new again. 

Imago Dei, the image of God in us, is us, fashioning our craft in response to His love, the love that saved and redeemed us. If we are creative, then its because the source of who we are is creative. Everything we produce is an expressive act of His adaptive creativity.