Sabbath: Man: God’s Handiwork
Read for This Week’s Study: Gen 1:27; 1:26; Mark 12:13-17; Gen. 2:19-25; Acts 17:26; Rom. 5:12-19.
Memory Text: “Know ye that the Lord he is God: it is he that hath made us, and not we ourselves” (Psalm 100:3).
Key Thought: God created humanity in His own image; sin defiled that image. God’s plan is to restore that image in us.
A nineteenth-century thinker, Arthur Schopenhauer, while deep in thought about the essence of human identity, accidently bumped into someone on the street. The person whom he hit angrily demanded, “Who do you think you are?”
“Who am I?” Schopenhauer responded. “I wish I knew.”
Who am I? Who are we as a race? What are we doing here? How did we get here, and why?
These are ancient questions that humans still debate today. Scripture, however, answers them all. That’s because there is an inseparable link between the question of our identity and the doctrine of creation. The answer to all those questions is found there; no other biblical doctrine is as central to our understanding of humanity as is creation, because it focuses on our origin, not merely our beginning. “Beginning” simply may refer to the fact of coming to be; “origin” attaches the idea of purpose to that fact of coming to be.
Therefore, radically opposed to evolution, which argues that there is no purpose for our existence (we are here by chance alone), is the Bible teaching on the creation of humanity. Rarely have there been two teachings that present starker or more irreconcilable alternatives to not only our existence but to our identity as human beings.
Study this week’s lesson to prepare for Sabbath, October 20.
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Our identity is the handiwork of our GOD JEHOVAH most high who created humanity in HIS own image, we dont exist by chance but by GOD's handiwork & because of HIS tender mercies we are what we are today, & we have to be thanking HIM always. Amen.
In contemplating the reasons why God created us, I am intrigued, as I have been before, by the phrase, "the Glory of God". I've read various sources on it, for example, St. Irenaeus of Lyons who is reputed to have said, 'The glory of God is man fully alive...' Please comment. Thanks.
There is so much significance in this that He spoke everything else into existence, but literally made man with His own hands in His image (character). He, after man disobeyed Him, covered man in animal skin, before putting him out of the sanctity of the garden because man still have to face the consequences of his sin. There are so many times that He went out to see to the return of his handmade from their wayward selves to His fold to the extent that He sent His only begotten son, Jesus to die on the cross for man's salvation. If this is not love, then what else could it be? Thats the significance in a nutshell
If God created us solely to worship Him, doesn't that make Him to be a bit selfish? Why were we created?
Our purpose here is solely not to worship him because if we are not ready to do so He can lift up stones to worship Him. My dear, even if we are here to worship Him alone there is no sense of selfishness. He created us in his own image.
@ Curious....Worshipping God comes in many different forms, like loving your fellowmen is also an act of worship to God. Anything that you do that reflected His character is also worshipping him.
@Curious,That gives purpose to life.Though selfish it may seem,I cannot think of a better answer as to why God created us.Rev4:11"Thou art worthy, O Lord, to receive glory and honour and power: for thou hast created all things, and for thy pleasure they are and were created."
What think ye?
@curious...worship is a way of life, it is not an event. Worship testifies of God's nature (that God is good regardless of any situation). And I would like to believe that the purpose of worship is to glorify, exalt, praise, honor and please God. Even if the only purpose we were created was just to worship God I find no selfishness in it.
The word selfish means to be "concerned excessively or exclusively with oneself : seeking or concentrating on one's own advantage, pleasure, or well-being without regard for others." Can you be considered selfish when you are the only one?
He made all for himself. He did not disregard any other being the right to own us for it was only God who was in the beginning. He was not employed by any to make it for another, for in that case sometimes the maker is not the owner; but the Lord did employ himself in that great work, and for himself did he undertake and finish it. Proverbs 16:4 Colossians 1:15-16. He made all things of nothing, either without any matter at all, or without any but what himself had before made of nothing. A potter when he makes an earthenware vessel, if the clay be not his own which he makes it of, he is not the full owner of the vessel, though he formed it: "the form is his, the matter is another's;" but since the Lord made all of nothing, or of such matter as himself had made, all is wholly his, matter and form, all entirely.
He made all without the help or concurrence of any other. There was none that assisted him, or did in the least co-operate with him in the work of creation... Those that assist and concur with another in the making of a thing may claim a share in it; but here lies no such claim in this case, where the Lord alone did all, alone made all. All is his only. He upholds all things in the same manner as he created, continues the being of all things in the same way as he gave it. He does it of himself, without other support, without any assistant. All would fall into nothing in a moment, if he did not every moment bear them up. So that all things on this account have still their being from him every moment, and their well-being too, and all the means which conduce to it; and therefore all are his own.
God is our creator (Ps 100:3) He loves us so much that he made us in his image. I pray that we all focus at Him, the bread of life, and the more we focus unto him, the more we reflect his true image....Amen
Sorry for my broken English. I'm Chilean. I think that worshiping God is the only way to be happy, not because God has imposed this rule arbitrarily, but because it is the only way to have the disposition necessary to not reject the life that comes only from Him. When we worship, I think he is happy enough for us for accepting his gift and live in his presence, that in itself is worship.
To God be the Glory
GOD LOVED US
God bless 🙂
@ Curious...... On the question of why God created us (was it just to worship Him) I can say that, as a young married couple, we had children because we wanted someone in our image, to love (a love, adoration and relationship we couldn't even begin to understand until we held those girls in our arms) and what an awesome journey that has been for us (far from perfect, but awesome). I don't think we were being selfish, but we were wanting relationship.
If you're asking "why did God create us Earthlings" - was not Satan restricted to this planet? Then, perhaps God took the supreme risk of creating our human race to give Satan a go at proving his point, and to reveal to the rest of the universe also what that point could ultimately be. And then ..... along came our Saviour, and with Him, God's amazing grace. What an awesome God!