Re:Verse passage – Psalm 139:13-16 (day four)
Psalm 139 reveals several things to us. The four verses we’re focusing on this week reveal that God knows us intimately and cares for us even before we’re born. It reveals that not only is he near to us from the moment of conception, but that he is actually engaged in the work of forming us, gently creating us in our mother’s womb. This is miraculous in and of itself.
But when we read these verses in the context of the entire psalm, we see that God’s intimate knowledge of us is made even more amazing by his omniscience and omnipresence. In verse 7, David asks, “Where can I go from your Spirit? Or where can I flee from your presence?” He goes on to proclaim that there is not one inch of heaven or earth that lies outside of God’s presence. There is not a soul whom God does not know intimately. The God of the universe is so kind that he makes himself present to us before we even have a conscious thought. He chooses to know us before we can utter a word of praise.
Because God makes himself present to us even in the womb, because he forms us with love and creates us in his image, he imbues our lives with dignity. Our lives have dignity from the moment of conception because God chooses to impart divine dignity to us. How, then, should this impact the way we treat others? How might we acknowledge the divine dignity in those around us, even those we would consider our enemy? He is as present to us now as he was from the start.
That speaks directly to the problem of abortion. We are a person at conception. Some do not believe that and then free themselves from any guilt by killing that person with an abortion. We cannot give life. The graveyard proves it. Only a life giving, eternal, sovereign, all powerful God can do that. So when you abort, you kill a person. That’s murder.