January 26, 2024 -- Psalm 139:13-16 -- Why are you valuable?

People loved by the Father, in the Spirit's power: Sh'ma ~ hear and obey Jesus!

13 For you formed my inward parts;
    you knitted me together in my mother's womb.
14 I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.
Wonderful are your works;
    my soul knows it very well.
15 My frame was not hidden from you,
when I was being made in secret,
    intricately woven in the depths of the earth.
16 Your eyes saw my unformed substance;
in your book were written, every one of them,
    the days that were formed for me,
    when as yet there was none of them.
Psalm 139:13-16 ESV

Why are people valuable? Why is every life precious? Each one is made in the image of God. Each person who was ever conceived had a start of life by the design of our Heavenly Father. What tenderness you find in our passage today—He knit us together. He knows all our days. When a society loses this fundamental truth, then life becomes shockingly disposable.

Medical assistance in dying (M.A.I.D.) has reached such a fevered pitch that in 2023 up to 7% of all deaths in Quebec were by M.A.I.D. In February of 2023 a bill was passed by the North Dakota State House stating people are superior to animals and inanimate objects. Why is this necessary? Think about it, people are sheltering dogs and cats and killing people. It has been reported that in the United States when a test for the markers of Down’s Syndrome are administered on a preborn child, the consequence is that to up 90% of the children thought to be Down’s babies were aborted. Dr, Jean Bethke Elshtain, author and professor of Social and Political Ethics, comments “^I worry that, in the name of reason, we may be eliminating whole categories of human beings”.

Fears expressed more than a decade ago by Elshtain, and in the previous century by C.S. Lewis, are proving valid. Veterans are being offered M.A.I.D. Homeless individuals. Our country aborts a over 70,000 babies a year. Senior citizens are being offered M.A.I.D. How much it echoes Nazi Germany! Then the regime carried out experiments on babies and those with dwarfism. The stated goal was the elimination of the Jewish people. In Nazi Germany it was the logical consequences of social Darwinism. In Canada and the United States today, the elimination of whole categories of people, of human beings, is considered acceptable—again, you are seeing the logical consequences of social Darwinism. Life is not valuable. And as it is acceptable to destroy one category of people, soon, it will be others. The culture of death is a hunger that is never satisfied.

Dear family and friends in our Lord Jesus Christ you are valuable. People--old and young, sick and healthy, housed or homeless, mentally ill or on the spectrum of normal, all are valuable, not because of what we can or can not contribute in our world. Our worth comes from the fact that we are made in God’s image. We are precious to Him. He sent His Son Jesus to reconcile us to Himself and sealed the relationship by the powerful presence of His Holy Spirit. This is the gift conferred to believers by faith. When a man or a woman knows he is God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works which He prepared in advance for him to do, then the dignity of whole categories of people is once again restored. Pray for Christian revival to sweep across our land.

O God, Father in heaven, how precious to me are Your thoughts! How vast is the sum of them! If I were to count them, they are more than the sand. I awake, and I am still with You. Search me, O God, and know my heart! Try me and see if there be any grievous way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting. This I pray in Jesus’ Name. Amen.

https://youtu.be/05jKxv8ApuI?si=Bc-4f1FbzQjLoQy5 “My Worth is Not in What I Own”

^J. Elshtain, “Who are We? C.S. Lewis and the Question of Man. Socrates in the City. Ed. E. Metaxas, Toronto: Penguin Group. 2011, page 138

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