May 11 I Saturday

2 Kings 13-14

John 2

“Your eyes saw my unformed body; all the days ordained for me were written in Your book before one of them came to be.”  —Psalm 139:16

A lecturer presented a case study to a group of medical students attending a seminar, explaining, “The father of a family has syphilis and his wife has tuberculosis. They have four children already. The first is blind, the second died, the third is deaf and consequently dumb, and the fourth child has tuberculosis. Now, the mother is pregnant with her fifth child and she comes to you for advice as to whether she should go through with the pregnancy. How would you advise her?” He left this dilemma with the students, who unanimously affirmed that they would recommend the mother terminate the pregnancy. The lecturer responded, “Congratulations, you just destroyed Beethoven.”

Abortion is a prevalent issue in our society and one that we cannot hide ourselves from facing. Some make a decision to terminate a pregnancy because a child will be inconvenient or because there will be difficulty in bringing them up. Yet, this decision loses sight of what stands at the core of every human being—that we are created in God’s image.

When God said in Genesis 1:26, “Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness,” He was not talking about a physical image, because God is not a physical being, but a moral one. When God created human beings, it was intended that all of creation could look at a man or a woman and see in them what God is like. Each person—including unborn children—is made with the potential to be the dwelling place of the Spirit of God and their life to be an expression of the character of God. 

Nobody is an accident. Some of us may feel like we were, or our parents may have told us that we were, or we might look in the mirror sometimes and think that we look like one, but all of this could not be further from the truth. If we want to know the value that God puts on every human being, we just need to look at the cross of Jesus Christ. Nothing else shouts more loudly and clearly that every human being is valuable than God Himself becoming a man and dying a cruel death to reconcile men and women to God. We are precious in God’s eyes, created to be a physical expression of His own character, so let us live a life that reflects the image of God and help protect those innocent lives that are valuable in the eyes of God.

Prayer: Dear God, thank You for bringing me into this world and showing how valuable I am by having Your Son die on the cross for me so that I may be reconciled to You.