Spirit of Leadership

THE LOSS OF THE LEADERSHIP SPIRIT did not speak to the soil, the water, or the atmosphere, but he spoke to himself. This fact is most critical for understanding the nature, composition, value, and worth of the human spirit. In fact, to produce the human being, the Creator actually used two processes. First, he said, “Let us make man in our image, in our likeness.” When he made man, he essentially drew man out of himself, so that the essence of man would be just like him. Just as God is Spirit, he made humans to be spirits. Spirits, by nature, have no gender. It is important to note that, in the Scriptures, there is no reference to a male or female spirit. This is because man, as an entity, does not have a spirit but rather is a spirit. The being that the Creator made in his image is much more than a physical being. Next, we read, “God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.” The Bible also says, “The L ORD God formed the man” and “made [the] woman.” The Creator essentially took this spirit-man and placed him in two physical forms: male and female. The essence of both male and female is the resident spirit within them, called “man.” We can think of the distinction in this way: God cre ated man, but he made male and female. The word for “created” is bara , and it means to form out of nothing. 25 The words “ formed” and “made” are the Hebrew words asah and banah, and they mean to mold and build 26 —in this context, to mold and build out of something that is already there. In reference to how humanity came into

153