Devotional: Created Equal Genesis 1:26-31

I have been watching parts of the Democratic Party’s debates for election to become the next president of the United States in the year 2020. One of the major issues is that of the rights of minorities, the poor, and women. What is the reason(s) that we have so many people suffering need, discrimination, and just plain misuse and abuse by others? Is this the way that God wants it to be? Is this the way God planned it when He created the first human beings?

In Genesis 1:26-31 we have the first recorded account of God’s creation of human beings. The writer of Genesis 1:1-25 records that God creates the world and everything in it. Then, He creates human beings. God makes a decision to create man and God has a specific purpose for creating them. Genesis 1:27 is a unique and significant statement. It says, “God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them. Did you get that? Man is both male and female together. They are one and they share in carrying out the assignment that God gives to them. “God blessed them; and God said to them, ‘Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it; and rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over every living thing they moves on the earth’” (v. 28, NASB).

God does not create human beings to have divisions. God creates human beings with equal status and equal responsibilities. The male is not created to have authority over the woman. Both the male and the female have the same job description. They are both responsible to do the work. How did human beings become divided? What brings about the misuse and abuse?

We are divided and we are antagonistic towards each other because we fell from the estate that God created us to occupy. We lost our fellowship with God, and we lost our fellowship with one another. The serpent deceives the woman and she disobeys God, and she convinces the man to join with her in eating the fruit that God forbids. That is sin. We have divisions in the human family because we are sinners, separated from God and from each other. Is there an answer? Is there hope for us? Yes, but it is not in politics, education, or economics. The answer is in Jesus who died so that human beings can be reconciled to God and then with each other.

Prayer: Father, we thank You for giving us a chance to once again have fellowship with You and other people. Amen.