Jesus Loves Meنموونە

Me

It’s fascinating to think of humanity from God’s perspective—hundreds of millions of people each making thousands of choices every day. God sees the murders. He sees the drug deals. He sees the pregnant mom who is smoking crack cocaine, damaging her baby. He sees the abusive husbands and dads damaging the very people they are designed to protect. He sees the wars and the racism, the bigotry, and the injustice.

At the same time, every day, God is seeing millions of good mothers who are cradling their babies, comforting them in the night. He sees loving fathers teaching their daughters to ride bikes. He sees heroes sacrificing their lives and comfort to rescue other people.

When God sees this whole mess of humanity—the good and the bad—what does He feel? I suggest that this one question—How does God see me?— answers all the universal human questions.

God sees a glorious ruin He is eager to restore.

• Glorious. You are made in the image of God. You have inherent worth and dignity that nobody can take away from you.
• Ruined. Like me and every other person you’ll meet, you are corroded to some extent by the evil in this world.
• Worthy of restoration. God desires to restore you to your original design. He wants you to live a life free from corrosion; free from the fear of death; free from separation, pain, brokenness, or any kind of evil.

Every human being, no matter how flawed, broken, or evil still carries in them traces and hints of this original glory that God gave to all humans.

And at the same time, every human being, no matter how talented, moral, or good, is still stained to some extent by the evil that has saturated this world and the sin that all of us have chosen.

In Ephesians 2:10, God describes you as His masterpiece, a crafted poema; that’s the Greek word from which we get our word “poem.” In eternity, we who trust the Master to restore us will display His radiance, declaring that He is not only the mightiest being in the universe, not only the brilliant Creator but also the ultimate Redeemer, one who restores what evil intended to destroy. This is who we are in Christ.

In what area of your life are you most aware of your “ruined” state? In what area of your life could you most use God’s “restoring” power to make you new?