“Whoever sheds the blood of man,
by man shall his blood be shed,
for God made man in his own image.”
– Genesis 9:6
What a difference there is between the way we humans view the lives of fellow humans and how God views our lives! God considers all human life to be extraordinarily precious. Each person in this world – billions of them – is made in God’s own image. He forms us meticulously in the womb and we share (in a limited way) certain attributes of God that remind us of how deeply invested He is in our existence, blessing, and redemption. God treasures all human life – born and unborn, rich and poor, male and female, citizen and immigrant. God values people from every ethnic group, every language group, and every nationality.
By contrast, most of us view life quite cheaply. We’ve learned how to kill in vast numbers with ruthless efficiency through war. We’ve learned to numb ourselves to the horrors of famine, disaster, and disease even when those are preventable. We base much of our entertainment on the simulation of death on screens and in games. We find enjoyment, satisfaction, and meaning in insulting, degrading, oppressing, or mistreating other people bearing God’s image. We kill hundreds of thousands of unborn children for the sake of convenience and call it “choice”. All in all, we fall terribly short of God’s perspective on human life and that’s true even for those who claim the name of Jesus.
As we follow Jesus, we must learn to think like Him. We must learn to care about what He cares about even when we can’t do anything about it beyond weeping and praying. Jesus cares about other people, so we must as well. He cares about the poor and the vulnerable, so we must as well. He cares about the oppressed, the refugee, and those caught in the crossfire, so we must as well. We must deeply value ALL people – not just those we happen to like or that look like us, because Jesus deeply values ALL people.
#FollowJesus