God created us with bodies, physical human bodies. God’s story for all of history is revealed in our bodies, male and female. We are made in God’s image, but in the union of male and female in the covenant of marriage, there is the possibility of birthing new life–a human being, made in the image of God. In this way we participate in the divine overflow of love and creation in the beginning. We are also erotic creatures, desiring and loving creatures. God our creator designed us this way to point towards him in worship and in anticipation of the eternal union with him that has been the eternal joy of the Trinity. In our bodies, in our sexuality, in our eros, rightly ordered, we are being invited into the divine dance.

Doesn’t God want me to be happy? Why can’t I do what I want? Doesn’t God want me to be happy? What if there’s a deeper happiness, one we are designed for in this life and eternally? What does the creation of human beings with physical bodies tell us about God’s purpose for life. God created us with bodies, God became a body, and he invites us into his plan through our bodies. Your body matters: it is good, it is eternal, it is physical, it is you, and it reveals God’s story for all of creation.

“We hold these truths to be self-evident,” The Declaration of Independence begins. But are equality and rights self-evident? Modern societies try to underpin human dignity and equal rights in human superiority or collective knowledge “everyone knows,” but lack philosophical integrity. Christianity claims all humans have equal and eternal significance and worth from conception to natural death because we are made in the image of God. This has implications for our view of ourselves, our view of all others and impels us to radical concern for the vulnerable and voiceless.

What does it mean to be human? Like using a paper map without a compass and reference point, apart from God we are lost. But our starting reference point is the God who made us in his image and endowed us with dignity and worth. But all of humanity got lost, questioning God’s authority (Gen.3:1) and the sufficiency of being made in the likeness of God (Gen.3:5). But God does not leave us lost, he asks – where are you – and sends his Son, the image of the invisible God, to bring us home, restore us to God and conform us to his image.

In our modern culture, we determine what is best, right and wrong, who we are and how to live on our own. Shaped by many influences and assumptions, we lean on ourselves to decide. We have become our own authorities. But the Christian view is that God the Creator, designed the universe and called us into existence, and he is the one we are to live under; God is the authority of all that is right and good and true about life and the world.

In the vastness of the universe, earth is so small, and we are even smaller. Do we matter? Does life have meaning? From reason and empirical evidence alone, no, we do not. But Christianity and Genesis 1 claim there is a creator, and there is intention and meaning. And the meaning is found in knowing God: Father, Son and Holy Spirit. The one God in three persons, who in eternal loving communion gives birth to creation to share in his loving joy and invite us into a relationship.

To know who we are and what to do (how to live), we need to know what story we are in. Genesis 1:1-2:3 is the account of the creation of the world in poetic verse as the author, God, reveals himself. The story begins as God calls the world into being (Genesis 1-11) and then calls a people to himself (Genesis 12-50). He forms the universe and then fills it with his creation: order out of chaos; life from nothing; his word speaking creation into existence and inviting us, the pinnacle of his creation, into relationship with him, our Creator and God.