Thought for the Week

If we met for the first time, I would ask, “Who are you?” Your answer would probably be simple like: your name, or your relationship to someone I might know, i.e. “I am Tom Brown’s brother”, or, your occupation, “I am a carpenter.” But you are not simple. You are a combination of body, mind, spirit, soul and personality. You have ten fingerprints, ten toe prints, two ear prints, and a voice print that are especially designed for and unique to you. You have multiple systems within you, i.e. endocrine, digestive, circulatory, digestive, nervous, etc. They contain, miles of nerves, tubes, veins, arteries, etc. fitted into your body without kinks, to allow free flowing movement. Medical science says every cell in your body is replaced within seven years, yet you remain recognizable. I attended my 60th high school class reunion a few years ago and recognized folks I had not seen in all those years. Your mind is much more complex than the most sophisticated computer. I saw a Moody Science video some time ago that indicted your brain is receiving thousands of signals and messages every second and acting upon them without your conscious thought, unless they are somehow unique and perhaps dangerous to you. The intertwining of your soul and spirit is marvelous. You began with the union of your father’s sperm, your mother’s egg and the breath of God. As Genesis 2:7 indicates, and Psalm 139 expands on, God breathed into man’s nostrils the breath of life and man became a living soul. Scripture tells us “So God created you in the image of God, in the image of God He created you…” (Genesis 1:27) When God created you, He also gave you freedom to make choices. He did not create you as a puppet, or marionette He would absolutely control. You can and do make choices. The counterbalance to that is you have responsibility for the choices you make. One line in the hymn “A Charge to Keep I Have,” Lowell Mason and Charles Wesley wrote is, “A never-dying soul to save and fit it for the skies.” The closing line is “assured if I my trust betray, I shall forever die.” Although only eight lines long, it is a powerful hymn and speaks to us about God’s purpose for man’s existence and life. Truly, when God created our original ancestors, they were created in God’s image and after His likeness. The original act of sin against God somehow marred God’s image in us. But there remains a remnant of it. The Apostle John writes in his Gospel “He came into the world, the world was made by Him but the world did not recognize Him or receive Him, but to as many as did receive Him, He gave the right to become children of God, even to those who believe on His name.” (St. John 1:10-12) Later in his first Epistle, John wrote to Believers, “…We are children of God and it does not yet appear what we shall be, but we know that when He shall appear, we shall be like Him for we shall see Him as He is.” (I John 3:2) Sin marred the likeness of God in us. Belief in Christ will ultimately restore the image to what it was originally. You will still be unique and “one of a kind” but with the likeness of the Triune God indelibly on and in you. For those who make the right decision (to believe in and follow Christ), the result will be eternal life in Heaven with Christ.

Scriptures to Read

Psalm 139:13-18

Job 33:4, 24-28

Psalm 139:1-10

St. John 1:9-14

Galatians 4:4-20

I Corinthians 15:35-44

I Corinthians 15:45-57