The LORD God formed the man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being. Genesis 2:7

Do you think of yourself as a chance happening, a mistake, or possibly an accident?  Not if you believe what the Bible says.  It says you were created in the image of God for Him, by Him and to fulfill His purpose.  So you didn’t know God had a purpose for you, did you?  “You saw me before I was born and scheduled each day of my life before I began to breathe,” says Psalm 139:16 (Living Bible).

The world, by and large, doesn’t get it.  They consider life to be a matter of chance or fate or happenstance that can be explained in terms that leave no room for God.  “The natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; nor can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned,” wrote Paul in 2 Corinthians 2:14 (NKJV).

Because life originated with God, human life is sacred, something which is to be preserved.  But, suppose that life isn’t sacred, that the Bible is wrong, and that God doesn’t have a plan for His children, then what would be the implications?  Have you ever considered that scenario?  Frankly, both the premise of the world and the statements of the Bible cannot be squared. Both cannot be right.  If the Bible is right, then the attitude of the world today is misleading and deceptive, producing despair and darkness in our personal lives.  If the Bible is right, then life is sacred and some of our thinking has gone awry.

If life is not sacred, there would be some devastating consequences involving personal responsibility, suicide, abortion, and euthanasia or ending the life of a person whose health has deteriorated.

For the next two minutes, consider the implication of just one of these: taking another person’s life, which we call murder.  One of the major differences between you and an animal is your ability to think and reason on a level which is far superior to that of your dog, which prompts him to respond to your whistle when you set down his food.  You think, you reason, you have emotions, which means you love, you hate – and sometimes you hate so much that you wish the person you hate were dead.  And that is the bedrock of murder.

Surprising as it may be to you, the mentality that taking another person’s life is wrong stems directly from the Bible, specifically the Judeo-Christian culture, which shaped the laws of Europe and the West.   So strongly did God feel that murder is wrong that its prohibition became the fifth commandment, which says simply:  “You shall not murder.”  Where historic Judaism or Christianity has had no roots, taking the life of another person isn’t such a big deal, and, at times, is tolerated or even encouraged.

Never forget that Moses was a murderer and even Paul was an accomplice to murder because he held the coats of those who stoned Stephen, which you can read about in Acts 7 in the New Testament.

When Harold Jefferies and his wife celebrated their 60th wedding anniversary, Mrs. Jefferies was asked if during that time she had ever considered divorce.  With a sparkle in her eye, this little woman replied, “Divorce never; murder often!”

Though God forgives both divorce and murder, neither of these is written on the page in God’s book which has your name on it as His child.  Why?  Because God says life is sacred.  It is His to give and take—not yours. Yet from the day when Cain killed his brother to the present, our old natures create the anger and hatred that causes us to wish someone were dead.  The restraint has to include the realization that because life is sacred, it is not ours to snuff out—no matter how legal that may be.

Resource reading: Psalm 139:1-18