WHAT IS MAN?
When Shakespeare wrote Hamlet, he wrote about a character who had to make choices without regard to repercussions.  So Hamlet questions his own nature, as to who he is.  He says to his friend Rosencrantz--
  what a piece of work is a man, how noble in reason, how
  infinite in faculties, in form and moving how express and
  admirable, in action how like an angel, in apprehension how like
  a god!  the beauty of the world, the paragon of animals--and yet
  to me, what is this quintessence of dust?

  Hamlet's question about himself is that he, like every man, is a mixture.  He would like to clutch one element of his manliness but the other qualities are there, always there.  So the question remains.
  In Acts 17.28 Paul says--in Him we live and move and hae our being.  We are completely His even if we don't believe in God.  Jesus says in Matthew 10.29 that--not one sparrow will fall to the ground apart from your Father. We have our existence because God exists.  And yet, nearly all spiritual writers say we must empty ourselves of ourselves to be holy.  We must pick up our cross daily, deny the world, relinquish our self to God.

  So, we must ask, how do we do that?
 
  While the Scriptures say man is evil (Gen.6.3), they also say God is good.  We have been made in His image, Gen. 1.27.  This means, among other things, that mankind is a person as God is a person.  Paul said this in the Acts 17 passage when he says we have our being in God.  Being a person means being self-conscious, which in turn means that we make choices.

  This brings us to our freedom to make those choices.  A man dead in his trespasses and sins does not have choices--he is dead.  The one who has choices is the one who is living as the image of God.  Even after Adam's sin, God speaks to him.  Adam has the freedom to confess his sin, to return in humility to God, even if he doesn't.  It is the man and woman living as God's image who has the choices.  The purpose of that freedom to choose is to be transformed into the likeness of God in Christ.

  God relates to us spiritually as men and women who are nothing without Him--apart from Me you can do nothing, John 15.5.  We relate to God as a person who responds to Him in repentance and belief, Matt. 3.2, Acts 17.30.  We are vessels in His hands, yet we are also impressed by His image to be like Him.

  The disciples were called to be followers of Jesus, brothers of Him, friends of Him.

  The disciples were called to be His followers, that is, those who would learn of Him, Matt. 11.29, John 6.45.  They did follow Him and He revealed special things to them.  But when He ascended, He gave the gift of the Holy Spirit for His disciples to go into the world.  They became brothers, that is, fellow workers in the work of evangelism.  In Matt. 12.49 Jesus calls His disciples His own brothers as--whoever shall do the will of My Father who is in heaven, he is my brother.
  We see this when Paul calls Epaphroditus his brother in Philippians 2.25.  Both Peter and Paul humble themselves in the work of the Lord.  Paul says in 2 Corinthians 1.24--we are workers with you for your joy...  And in 1 Peter 5.1 Peter calls himself--your fellow-elder and witness.  One among many, brothers in the Lord.

  But that is not all.  In John 15.23-17 Jesus says--no longer do I call you slaves..but I have called you friends.  What is a friend according to Jesus?  It is--for all things that I have heard from My Father I have made known to you.  Why has Jesus done this?  He has, in order that--you should go and bear fruit and that your fruit should remain that whatever you ask of the Father in My name, He may give it to you.
  And then there's more.  According to Paul's word to Timothy in 2 Tim. 2.12, we will reign in heaven with Christ.  In the eternal state, we will reign upon the new earth, Revelation 5.10, 20.6.

  What this means is that as the living image of God we are given the freedom to choose God,  to be his brothers and friends to ultimately reign in heaven with Christ.