Summertime
has been eventful this year. Grandchildren have visited, vacations are being
taken, families have gotten together; it has been a grand time so far. We
prayed for our brethren in the Black Forest and were relieved to see the fires
stop. Good friends were deeply affected and our hearts went out to them. We
have all been working hard to serve the Lord and support our families by the
grace of God as always. We were glad to have the Songspinners visit in June and
had a great time of potluck fellowship.
On August 4
we will join Heartsong Church after our morning service with a potluck lunch.
Afterwards we will have a traditional gospel singing that Greg will lead and
Lisa will play for. All are welcome.We have been journeying through Psalms this summer and have rejoiced to learn that David revealed his poetic heart to us in what a personal relationship with God should be. We recently went through Psalm 139 and rejoiced in the creation of God in that “we are fearfully and wonderfully made.”
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Man as a creation of God is wonderful and glorious. Admiring the value of the creation of God means the praise goes to God, not the thing created
- When you look at man, you see the image of God. When you look at God you do not see the image of man, for God is the creator
- Man was created by God in God’s image but not created as God or a god; the idea of a human being is just that – one species, never more than a human, never less than a human
- Man will never be more than a man, a created being of God, yet man is special and separated from all other created things. It was only in man that God’s person and image was “breathed”
- This does not make mankind little gods. Even in glory man will not be deity; he will be man glorified. Man is born sinful and with a “lifeless spirit” that was waiting to be “regenerated” by the Spirit of God
- Jesus was the Son of Man. He was all the fullness of man and God in physical form. Jesus in His post-resurrection form represented the highest man will reach (Phil.
- Man as a creation can grow and mature in the form of Christ personally and spiritually, and can emulate the character of Christ substantially, but he is still a created being. Man will one day go from being a horse to a winged horse, but will still be a horse in nature. Jesus took on the appearance of a horse but wasn’t by nature only a horse
- God should be praised for His creation. Man represents the highest expression of God’s creative nature; we are the pinnacle of God’s creation
- We are “fearfully made.” The creation is of such power and beauty that it excites awe and fear in the eyes of the beholder. God did not make us to be timid, but what He made was so wonderful that looking at it makes the one beholding fearful and awestruck
- The body is complicated, intricate and delicate in its makeup; a person doesn’t have to be a scientist to realize it. The greater mystery is not that a human being dies but that he is alive at all
- Man is also a moral being with total separation from animals. Part of man’s glory in creation is the moral nature of man and his freedom of choice
- We are also “wonderfully made.” This refers to the intricacy of creation. We are more than a chemical machine. No machine could ever duplicate the intricate creation which is a human being. Will a computer one day be the duplicate of a man (Artificial Intelligence)? This is not likely since it was man that created the computer.
- “Marvelous are thy works;” it is not that God made Adam and started the order of human procreation, then let it go on its own. Man does not make himself. God is involved in every birth, therefore we are His work. This is not to say that God is the cause of every birth
- David gave all the credit for himself to God, not to his mom and dad. No one is a prisoner of his genes, but God used genetic material to form us
