God Created You

God created you.  That’s really something to consider, isn’t it!  Not only did God create everything, but He created you.  Despite any delusions you may have, you’re not a god, but you do have one.  When God, who made the heavens and the earth, creates, He does so by speaking.  

And when He created human beings, God said, “Let us make man in our image.”  

What does it mean to be made “in the image of God”?  It means that God created you to hear His word and to trust it.  Faith means simply trusting the word that God speaks.  

“And God saw everything that He had made, and behold it was very good.” Everything was just the way God made it to be.  Something is good because God made it that way, and He made it good by speaking.

God created you to have faith.  However, because of sin, we’ve lost that.  We don’t trust what God says.  We look to ourselves as the source of goodness, rather than simply trusting in God.  We’re conceived and born without trust in God–that’s what sin means.

Therefore, we even hear the blessings God gives to His creatures as curses or threats.  God says, “Be fruitful and multiply,” and we respond, “No, thank you.” We fear children as burdens, or threats to our identity and personal freedom.  We carry out violent acts in the name of preserving our right to live life on our own terms.  But that’s not freedom; it’s bondage.  We are in bondage to sin, lacking the fear and trust that God wants from us.

But God created you.  He made you to have faith.  Faith comes by hearing, and hearing through the Word of Christ: that Jesus took all your distrust, claimed it as His own, was crucified and died with it, and was raised from the dead to declare that your sin is forgiven for His sake.  God created you to hear Him.  And when you do, He will use you, His own creation, as the means to give this faith to others, too.

God continues to use a man and a woman as His chosen means to bring new people into the world–sinners to whom He can give His promise.  Even a baby in the womb can hear.  In Luke 1, when Mary, pregnant with Jesus, greeted her cousin Elizabeth with a blessing, the baby in Elizabeth’s womb (John the Baptist) leapt for joy.  When Christ came to John, even in the womb, he heard Christ and was given faith!

So, if you’re an expectant mother, bring that little one to hear Christ, even now.  Preach the Gospel to the child growing inside you.  I give thanks for my own mother, whom God used not only to bring me into this world, but to bring me to be baptized and receive the object of faith: the promise of Jesus Christ.  Faith comes through hearing, and hearing through the Word of Christ–even in the womb!