made in the image of God

Genesis 1:27 is a familiar passage to many:

So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.

It's familiar, but do we actually think about what it means to us today? Do we take it for granted, give it lip service, gloss over it? What about Ephesians 4:24:

... and to put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness.

What does this mean? We have not seen God, and we are mere humans: How can we be the image of God? A quotation from the writings of St. Athanasius of Alexandrea (4th century AD/CE) offers us an answer:We were made "in the likeness of God". But in course of time that image has become obscured, like a face on a very old portrait, dimmed with dust and dirt. When a portrait is spoiled, the only way to renew it is for the Subject to come back to the studio and sit for the artist all over again. That is shy Christ came - to make it possible for the divine image in man to be recreated. We were made in God's likeness; we are remade in the likeness of his Son. To bring about this re-creation, Christ still comes to men and Lives among them. In a special way he comes to his Church, his "body", to show us what the "image of God" is really like. As posted at http://justus.anglican.org/resources/bio/152.html, viewed May 2 2017

How can I present the image of God to the world? How can others see Him, not me? Keith Green's song "No Compromise" inspires me and challenges me to allow God to work in me to accomplish just such a miracle in my life:

I want to live, and let you live / Your life in me, that they might see ... 

(click here to listen:  https://youtu.be/GC2vvncga4U)

P.S. Athanasius is my hero! If not for his valiant and long-suffering championship, the doctrine of the Divinity of Christ would have yielded to Arianism, the belief that Christ Jesus was merely "a god".