<\/p>\n
Genesis 1:27<\/span>\u00a0<\/a>\u00a0So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n
Genesis 2:7<\/span>\u00a0<\/a>\u00a0then 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.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n
There is a moment in the creation story that is easy to walk past.<\/p>\n
God speaks light into darkness. He separates the waters. He calls land out of the sea and fills it with trees and creatures and everything that grows and swims and flies. Again and again He looked at what He had made and said it was good. Good, in the sense that only a maker can mean it: this is exactly what I intended, and it is beautiful.<\/p>\n
Then He made us. And the word changed. It was\u00a0very good.<\/em><\/p>\n
He delighted in everything He made. But with us, the delight went somewhere it had not gone before. He did not just look at us and call it good. He came close. He formed us with the kind of attention you give to something you intend to love and be loved by.<\/p>\n
Not spoken into existence from a distance, but formed from the ground up, the way a potter shapes clay.\u00a0The LORD God formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life<\/em>\u00a0(Gen. 2:7). A God who breathes into His creation is not a God who is keeping His distance. He stooped. He formed us with the kind of care you give to something that matters to you more than anything else.<\/p>\n
The Only Reason Given<\/strong><\/h4>\n
Not because we had earned anything. Not because we had proven ourselves. Moses put it plainly to Israel, and it has never stopped being true:<\/p>\n
\nIt was not because you were more in number than any other people that
\nthe Lord set his love on you and chose you, for you were the fewest of all peoples,
\nbut it is because the Lord loves you.\u00a0<\/em>\u2014 Deuteronomy 7:7\u20138<\/p>\n<\/div>\nBecause the Lord loves you.<\/em><\/p>\n
No other explanation is given. None was needed. This is what love does when it originates in God. It does not wait to be deserved. It simply moves. He is not merely loving. Love is what He is. When God made us, love was not one of the things He intended to give us. It was the ground we were shaped from. (Bible Portal)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Genesis 1:27\u00a0\u00a0So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. Genesis 2:7\u00a0\u00a0then 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. There is … Continue reading “71.i. Genesis 1:27\u00a0\u00a0“<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-200161","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-daily-prayers"],"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.prayingpint.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/200161","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.prayingpint.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.prayingpint.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.prayingpint.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.prayingpint.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=200161"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.prayingpint.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/200161\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":200164,"href":"https:\/\/www.prayingpint.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/200161\/revisions\/200164"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.prayingpint.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=200161"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.prayingpint.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=200161"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.prayingpint.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=200161"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}