It is easy to question what mankind is when we compare us to God. This devotional reading looks at how flawed mankind can be noticed by Sovereign God – by His love.
Nuggets
- Mankind is weak and sinful.
- God love us regardless of our flaws.
- We are wonderfully made because we are made in God’s image.
When God created us, we were made in His image. But mankind messed that up.
God provided a way to correct that through a free and unmerited love.
Let's Put It into Context
To read devotions in the On the Day of the Lord theme, click the button below.
Devotions in the Getting Started in Revelation study
The foundation of this series is Witherspoon’s sermon The Love of Christ in Redemption.
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We the People
What Is Man?
“What is man, that you make so much of him, and that you set your heart on him” (Job 7: 17 ESV)
Mankind is weak and sinful.
Job asked an interesting question. What is man? God’s Word tells us.
- “then the Lord God formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living creature” (Gen. 2: 7 ESV).
- “But we have this treasure in jars of clay, to show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us” (II Cor. 4: 7 ESV).
It is a good thing that this body is so fleeting. It would be one thing if we were still in our Garden-of-Eden mode.
When we were made in God’s image, we were not sinful. Because death had not been introduced, we were not mortal.
Unfortunately, mankind chose to disobey God. That is why we are called a fallen creature.
- “For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Rom. 3: 23 ESV).
- “Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned” (Rom. 5: 12 ESV).
- “If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us” (I Jn. 1: 8 ESV).
- “For the desires of the flesh are against the Spirit, and the desires of the Spirit are against the flesh, for these are opposed to each other, to keep you from doing the things you want to do” (Gal. 5: 17 ESV).
All of that, and God “… make[s] so much of him [mankind] …” (Job 7: 17 ESV). That is why we question, as the psalmist did in Psalm 8, why we were made “… a little lower than the heavenly beings …” (Ps. 8: 5 ESV).
There are times in which we feel so insignificant — so unworthy.
There are angels. They haven’t sinned. They do everything God requires – and do it right the first time. They live in Heaven with God.
There is nature itself. It is so varied. We have majestic mountains and forests. Then we have oceans and deserts. There are sunrises and sunsets.
Everything is beautiful.
There is God Himself. He is the Creator of the universe. He created the angels, mountains, forests, oceans, deserts, sunrises, sunsets – and us.
Then, take flawed us. We put ourselves at the end of that list — if we even make the cut at all.
Well, we look at all this and feel so insignificant. We seem so sinful.
So, why did God give us free will to screw that up?
God wants us to choose Him.
One thing is for certain, mankind doesn’t like being forced into something. God knows that.
Besides, God would rather reward obedience gained through freedom than be a dictator and receive forced, false worship.
We think mankind has to be of some consequence, or God would not be mindful of us. But we think of our skills or knowledge — our achievements and power.
Instead, God is magnified in our weakness.
- “I am speaking in human terms, because of your natural limitations. For just as you once presented your members as slaves to impurity and to lawlessness leading to more lawlessness, so now present your members as slaves to righteousness leading to sanctification” (Rom. 6: 19 ESV).
- “Man is like a breath; his days are like a passing shadow” (Ps. 144: 4 ESV).
Then, we can be riddled with guilt. Why would God want to consider us when we haven’t asked forgiveness for disobeying Him.
Why Is God Mindful of Us?
“what is man that you are mindful of him, and the son of man that you care for him?” (Ps. 8: 4 ESV)
God love us regardless of our flaws.
At first glance, the way the psalm is written can make some read it as man is too small for God to consider.
Instead, it is the exact opposite, isn’t it? The psalmist is showing how great mankind is because God sees us as having unspeakable worth.
The Homilist gave a good rundown of why God is mindful of us. It said, “Man is an immortal intelligence, and therefore great. He does not mean that man is insignificant in comparison with the heavens. The heavens are incapable of studying their Maker; man can. The heavens have no power of self-modification — they cannot move slower or faster, grow brighter or dimmer, of their own accord; man can. The heavens will not continue their identity forever.”
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Bottom line is God chose us. He chose us because of His love and grace. He showed us this through the Plan of Salvation — His plan of redemption for us.
God isn’t going to overlook us. He is mindful of us! Not only that, but He also pays special attention to us.
It is not only that God created us and didn’t leave us alone. God considers us.
Even Job knew that God wasn’t a far-off God. In all of his trials, Job was able to pour his heart out to his Father.
We know God cannot forget us. “Can a woman forget her nursing child, that she should have no compassion on the son of her womb? Even these may forget, yet I will not forget you. Behold, I have engraved you on the palms of my hands; your walls are continually before me” (Isa. 49: 15-16 ESV).
God is a hands-on God. He wants to be involved in the big things happening in our lives as well as the little ones.
We have to realize that, to God, religion is all about not only restoring our relationship with Him but also strengthening it.
David did get it right, though. We have to reach out to God in humility.
Glossary
We shouldn’t think that we are equal to God. If we think we don’t need God, we are wrong.
We can’t think only of the here and now. We have to consider the future.
Remember, we are chasing a rabbit while we are study the Book of Revelation. On the Day of the Lord, we will be perfected. Our sinful bodies will be a thing of the past.
I like what Thompson said. He wrote, “The contemplation of our weakness and our littleness, the frailty of the perishing body, the instability of the mental powers, the fewness of our passing years, the shortcomings of our best [endeavors], the insufficiency of what we accomplish compared with what we purpose and desire, — all this might well suggest to us a philosophy of despair. But the thought of our high origin and our glorious destiny awakens and fosters in us the religion of hope.”
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But you know, Thompson described how we are now: weak, mortal, unstable. Instead, God sees us covered with the blood of Jesus. He sees us how we will be.
So, we are a little less than the angels.
Well, we were made in God’s image. We have His attributes.
To read a devotion in the Finding Our Center series, click on the button below.
God always does things for a reason. Being mindful of mankind shows His goodness, grace, and love.
God made us in His image so that we can and will worship Him. We depend on God for everything — for life.
A benefit of the relationship with God is that He allows us to come to Him and ask for our needs.
- “Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks it will be opened” (Mt. 7: 7-8 ESV).
- “If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you” (Jn. 15: 7 ESV).
God has the power to give us what we ask and so much more when we ask in faith. It is all predicated by our redemption.
Fearfully and Wonderfully Made
“I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well” (Ps. 139: 14 ESV)
We are wonderfully made because we are made in God’s image.
Let’s take a run at this another way – my take, not Witherspoon’s. The Homiletic Review reminded us that we are fearfully and wonderfully made. Take a look at the categories they brought up.
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Fine Animal Organism
I know. This is an interesting heading, but all of these are the Homiletic Review’s words.
We would say we aren’t animals. We aren’t wild and mean.
But we are animals. We are mammals.
Hill told us how we are separated from animals. He wrote, “The interval between the highest brute intelligence and the rational soul of the lowest man is so wide and impassable a gulf that all but the most extreme and immoderate theorists find need to suppose the intervention of a sublime life-giving power that transcended all previously existing natures in bestowing upon man a rational soul.”
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We have an intelligence that allows us to make choices. We can reason things out in a logical process.
Intellectual Being
God made us as intellectual beings. He did not make us dumber than a box of rocks. “And it is my prayer that your love may abound more and more, with knowledge and all discernment, so that you may approve what is excellent, and so be pure and blameless for the day of Christ, filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ, to the glory and praise of God” (Phil. 1: 9-11 ESV).
Still, we are not as smart as God. “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the LORD. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts” (Isa. 55: 8-9 ESV).
Spiritual Being
We are who and what we are because we are made in God’s image. We have — to a lesser extent — most of the attributes of God.
- “Then God said, ‘Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.’ So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them” (Gen. 1: 26-27 ESV).
- “And have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator” (Col. 3: 10 ESV).
- “He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation” (Col. 1: 15 ESV).
We have this spiritual nature because we have a soul. Harrison wrote, “It is the soul that makes man the most precious being in this lower world.”
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It is the job of the Holy Spirit to help us understand what it means to be a spiritual being. He shows us what a perfect disciple looks like.
Immortal Being
Some may mistakenly think only disciples live for eternity. That isn’t true.
All mankind is going to live for eternity. Disciples will do so in Heaven. Non-believers will do so in hell.
We are immortal just as God is.
Responsible Being
It is easy to think that disciples will get out of giving our own accounting for ourselves because we are covered by Jesus’ blood. Yes, there will be the separation of the sheep and the goats.
Glossary
I don’t think that gets us out of having the book of our life opened.
- “So then each of us will give an account of himself to God” (Rom. 14: 12 ESV).
- “I tell you, on the day of judgment people will give account for every careless word they speak, for by your words you will be justified, and by your words you will be condemned” (Mt. 12: 36-37 ESV).
- “For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may receive what is due for what he has done in the body, whether good or evil” (II Cor. 5: 10 ESV).
We are responsible for our actions. We will be held accountable for our choices.
Making the Connections
It is to our detriment that we think God can’t or won’t be mindful of us. All of us at some point think that there is no way God can care for us.
We would be wrong.
That way of thinking hinders our salvation. It not only keeps us from searching for God in the first place, but it also undermines the surety of our salvation.
God loves us. Immensely.
- “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life” (Jn. 3: 16 ESV).
- “but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Rom. 5: 8 ESV).
How Do We Apply This?
- Be consoled that God is mindful of us.
- Pray continually.
- Have hope for the future.
- Read God’s Word.
- Remember God provides for us.
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Father God. Mankind became sinful when we chose to disobey You. Yet, You see us not as we are. You see us as we should be and as we will be. Thank You for loving us so much that You don’t see our sins when they are covered by the blood of Jesus. Amen.
What do you think?
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