Sacred Worth (Devotion from the Pastor)

People have various reasons for venerating and preserving human life. Most possess a love for someone and are easily able to see profound value in their loved ones’ lives. Additionally, most possess a level of compassion for others, which causes them to believe it is necessary to protect life in order for everyone to have the freedom to flourish in the world. However, believers have an additional reason for respecting and working to preserve human life. This of course is that all human life is made in the image of God.

In the opening chapters of the Book of Genesis, God creates the world and everything in it. God creates human beings as central and ruling over all the rest of creation. He gives life to man and woman and declares that they are made in His image. Only human man and human woman were made in God’s image. Nothing else in creation was made in the image of God. All of humanity bears the image of God and is therefore is of divine worth. When God sets the life of a human being in motion, that life has a “temporary”existence through the body, but it has an “eternal” existence through the soul. Therefore, each man and woman created by God is of divine worth and lives forever, making each human life specific and purposeful, not accidental, worthless, or of subjective value. We Believers value and preserve human life because of the image we bear, because we submit to God, and because of our infinite existence and potential that exceeds our temporary troubles.

All humanity is given human rights because all possess God’s divine creation and image. Our rights don’t come from government, ideologies that are of human creation and subjective opinion. If a human being gives a person their rights, then a human being can take a person’s rights away. But because our human rights come from God, nothing can be legislated to take those rights from us…most importantly, the right to live. Glory be to the Lord our God.