By Gerald Flurry

When God made all the animals, the Bible says they were each made “after their kind” (Genesis 1:24-25). But there’s a great difference between animals and man. Man was different: “And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth” (verse 26).

We weren’t made after the animal kind. We were made after the God kind! God has shape and form, like you. We look like God! And yet scientists say we’re an animal. How diabolically wrong they are! You came from God, not an animal—not from evolution. “Let us make man in our image”! How much clearer could that be? Evolution is a satanic view of life. Satan loves to destroy our incredible human potential, and what a masterful job he has done in doing just that. How ridiculous is the theory of evolution! It has never been proven because there’s no evidence. But scholars have many people believing it—often by intellectual intimidation. But they don’t intimidate God. And they shouldn’t intimidate you.

God created you in His likeness, and now He wants to create you in His image, or put His character in you. Why? So you can renew the whole universe. You can’t do that without character. The desolation and decay that has been wreaked upon this universe came because of a lack of character. You must be building God’s character in your life if you’re to fulfill God’s potential for you.

The Incredible Human Potential states, “Few people realize that human reproduction has a sacred and God-plane meaning not applicable to any other kind of life. Human reproduction pictures spiritual salvation—which is actually God the Father reproducing Himself in the God Family” (page 71). Did you get that? Read that 20 times if you have to. The physical family is a type of the God Family and should be building the character of the God Family.

“And remember God intended human reproduction to be a family matter,” Mr. Armstrong continued. “It adds human children to the human family. The human family is the exact type of the God Family. God has bestowed marriage and family life on no other form of life except on humans, whose potential it is to enter the Family of God!” (page 74). Did you ever hear of two tigers marrying? No, because God never gave marriage to them. Why? Because they don’t have this incredible human potential. Even angels don’t have the potential to enter God’s Family—they cannot marry (Matthew 22:30). God decided to recreate Himself, to bring sons into His Family. And it starts with building God’s character in you.

Mr. Armstrong defined character like this: knowing the right from wrong and, when there’s a pull to disobey, having the WILL to go the right way. Yet so many tell you to do whatever your heart tells you. That will wreck your life. Do they know better than God? They don’t even know God.

If you are going to build this character, you have to want it. That’s the only way character can be built. God can’t force it on you. You must go after it and build it if you want to be like God, and you want to be in His Family, and you want to become a master builder out in the universe.

“Let us make man in our image,” God said. You are not an animal. Your potential is so far above theirs, and even that of the angels—those great fiery spirit beings that have caused men almost to drop dead upon seeing them. We even have potential far beyond that—to be actual members of God’s Family. How about that for a future?

James Dobson wrote in his book Hide or Seek, “I have observed that the vast majority of those young people between 12 and 20 years of age are bitterly disappointed with who they are and what they represent.” That’s such a condemning statement: 12- to 20-year-olds are disappointed and unhappy because they don’t like who they are. They could become Mickey Mantle or some great star like that, but how long would that joy last?

God wants to give you the greatest opportunity that could ever be given to any people on this Earth—to help Jesus Christ rule and beautify this Earth, make the people happy, and then move on to the universe to even greater things. God will only give it to you if you build the character.

Can anyone rule this Earth without godly character? Look at what has happened around you. Look at what happened in World War II when Hitler almost got control of all the Earth:Look at the destruction! That’s the way men rule without character.

Thus, the supreme goal for man is to build holy, righteous character. In Matthew 5:48, Christ said, Become perfect as your Father in heaven is perfect. That takes a lot of character. Of course, we fall short; we sin. King David failed at times. But still, God pays for those sins; Christ’s blood covers them if we repent. We can move on and be more perfect in attitude—more like our Father.

God cannot sin, because He will not. And He’s building within us the same character—where we can’t sin because we won’t.

Sons and Daughters of God

“God, who at sundry times and in divers manners spake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets, Hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son, whom he hath appointed heir of all things, by whom also he made the worlds” (Hebrews 1:1-2). God and the Word became Father and Son, because God wants a family.

If you are disappointed with who you are or what you represent, notice: “For unto which of the angels said he at any time, Thou art my Son, this day have I begotten thee? And again, I will be to him a Father, and he shall be to me a Son?” (verse 5). He has never called those great spirit beings—who once were chosen to rule the whole universe—sons in the sense of really being family. Angels are after the angel kind—they’re not like God. Yet, to all of you, He says, you can be sons and daughters of mine. How sad that people want to believe in evolution.

“How shall we escape, if we neglect so great salvation; which at the first began to be spoken by the Lord, and was confirmed unto us by them that heard him; For unto the angels hath he not put in subjection the world to come, whereof we speak” (Hebrews 2:3, 5). The angels will not rule the world to come or the universe.

Verse 6: “But one in a certain place testified, saying, What is man, that thou art mindful of him? or the son of man, that thou visitest him?” David kept asking, What is man that you are so concerned with him? What is he that you look after him? God looks after man because He is looking after His Family.

“Thou madest him [man] a little lower than the angels; thou crownedst him with glory and honour, and didst set him over the works of thy hands: Thou hast put all things [the Moffatt translation: the universe] in subjection under his feet” (verses 7-8). The whole universe has been put in subjection under man’s feet. “For in that he put all in subjection under him, he left NOTHING that is not put under him. But now we see not yet all things put under him.”

The whole universe will be put under man. But not yet. We have to develop the character first, or we don’t inherit the universe. Then God says, It’s all yours; I’ve already given it to you.

“But we see Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels for the suffering of death, crowned with glory and honour; that he by the grace of God should taste death for every man. For it became him, for whom are all things, and by whom are all things, in bringing many sons unto glory, to make the captain of their salvation perfect through sufferings” (verses 9-10). Yes, there will be suffering, but it’s because God is bringing many sons into His Family.

A youth wrote this years ago to the Church that Mr. Armstrong was head of: “I’m 22 years old and I’ve been to the bottom of life. I am like so many other kids my age in America—given everything but given nothing. I was never told anything as a child. There was no right or wrong. You had to find out everything for yourself. My parents would never believe there was anything wrong with me. I don’t mean to be critical of them. They just didn’t know any better. My father always felt all he had to do was to supply the money and the rest of growing up was left to me. I can’t describe how horrible this has been for me.”

How many examples like this do we have to hear about before we stop listening to the “experts” who tell us to do whatever is in our hearts? This website doesn’t tell you that. We tell you what’s right and what’s wrong, taken from the Bible. And what a wonderful, inspiring and beautiful life it produces. Absolutely nothing compares to it. Don’t listen to experts unless they tell you what God says. You can replace any hopelessness with an attitude even more passionate than Shakespeare’s: This world is too small-our kingdom is the universe!

Isaiah 11:9 states, “They shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain: for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea.” One day soon, this truth is going to fill the Earth, like the ocean beds are full of water. That means God wants help filling this world with knowledge and filling young people with a glow in their hearts and a joy in their lives that will last forever. A glow as endless as the universe they will inherit.

Why did God create the universe? Originally, He created it for the angels. Now it is there for mankind.

So tonight when it gets dark, go outside and, if you can, look up at the beautiful stars and realize that they are part of billions of galaxies, which are a part of this vast universe. Will you reach for those stars? This is as real as it gets. Realize and never ever forget that there is a connection between that universe and you! God help us never to lose sight of that connection!