Genesis 9 + Psalm 8

God‘s love for His people!

When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, what is man that you are mindful of him, and the son of man that you care for him?

‭‭Psalm‬ ‭8‬:‭3‬-‭4‬

The hymn is saying that we (believers) have seen all God has created, all His glory that surrounds us, and yet He made man and calls us His most honorable creation.

Genesis 6:6 mentions that the Lord regretted making man on Earth. It was not regret in the typical way we use it today of wishing it never happened but regret for us. Feeling regret over our sin, it grieves His heart to know the pain that the sin will cause us. A man’s heart is evil from the beginning, and yet God still looks at us as if we are made in His image. He still has hope for us and He still has love for us, and we see that in love Genesis 9 when He establishes a covenant with us. God promises that there will not be another flood, that there will be seasons, and that we will see rainbows that remind us of His covenant.

His promises show that even though we are wicked, God still regards us above all creation. He still wants us to be fruitful and multiply, and to fill the Earth. He still sees man as being made in His image despite the fact that we are a sinful creature.

It is reassuring to hear again that “God made man in His own image”. He is perfect and we are not. We see His perfection in the stars and light and all the creation we are surrounded with but we tend to overlook other people as part of Gods creation. We see faults in people and in ourselves before we see the image of God they are created in. We overlook gifts for faults. There is an opportunity here to look at other people as the perfect creation God made them to be. Even in our sin, God was able to see us in His image. How can we extend the same grace to others?

If a perfect God can view an imperfect man as being made in His image then I think we all have a little to learn about what real grace looks like!

God created us and designed us with such intention and perfection, and even though we will not meet that standard (not a single one of us), it doesn’t mean that we should look at other people with evil in our own hearts! We are no better than evil when we look at evil with evil. We must combat evil with truth and love. God has hope for us! We can be a more hopeful people too :-)