Created to glorify God!
The story of creation is the story declaring the glory of God as our Creator. By His word/hand all things in heaven and under the heavens came into being. To believe any thing else is to deny the authority and power of our Lord God Almighty. To misuse what He has created and set in place, whether ourselves, another human being, or nature itself, is in direct disobedience to the One who made all that exists.
A quote from John Calvin:
“There is not one blade of grass, there is no color in this world that is not intended to make us rejoice.” Whenever Christians have taken a cue from Holy Scripture, they have taught that human beings and the entire created order “declare the glory of God.”
What we mean is that creation, itself, is alive and infused with meaning. Just as human beings are not merely the dust we are made of, but images of our Creator, every star, every flower, and every grain of sand is also charged with divine truth. None of it is there by accident but exists to instruct us and to impel us to worship! Every earthly beauty is a true reflection of a heavenly reality.
In our secular age, we can quickly forget just how important that thought is, not just for belief in God, but how it shapes our understanding of ethics, science, art, business, and even politics. If there is meaning and purpose in the world that we didn’t put there, that means “right” and “wrong” are not things that can be changed at will. It means sex and marriage are real features of creation, not social constructs we can constantly redefine to serve our own purposes. It means the natural world is our Father’s world, and it must be treated with respect because it’s not our property. And it means that every person we meet is an image bearer of God, whom we have a duty to love, respect, and value.
Live as if the only reason we were created was to glorify God. For in that understanding we find our true purpose as His dear children. Pastor McCarty