I love this term, “doppelganger.” It is a German word that literally means “double walker.” In mythology, there are a number of ghostly doubles that appear. In literature, doppelganger imagery has been used to “explore the duality of the human nature.” Even psychiatry has a technical term for the doppelganger effect (heautoscopy). It is a hallucination in which someone sees one’s own body from a distance.

In today’s vernacular, it conveys the idea that someone physically or behaviorally closely resembles someone else.  It’s the concept of having a double.

Do you realize that in a sense, we are God’s doppelganger?

In Genesis 1, God said, “Let us make mankind in our (referring to the trinity) image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals and over the creatures that move along the ground.”

We were made in His image for a purpose. In His image, (as His doppelganger) we are to steward the earth. Our existence wasn’t happenchance. It was intentional. We are to live purposeful lives, lives filled with meaning.

And then in the New Testament, God reinforces this concept in II Corinthians 3.  He says that as we thoughtfully contemplate the Lord’s glory, we are being transformed into His image. Slowly but surely, an obedient child of God begins to resemble their heavenly Father.

Considering that we were created as His reflection and are being transformed into His image, you and I have some challenges. As His walking double, we need to talk as He would; behave as He would; love as He might; and forgive as He most certainly would.  His reputation is at stake.

One of John Bunyan’s characters once said, “Wherever I have seen the print of His shoe in the earth, there have I tried to set my foot too.” So, this week, let’s remember who we “closely resemble”  and walk carefully in His steps.