“And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bring forth a Son, and shall call His name Jesus. He will be great, and will be called the Son of the Highest; and the Lord God will give Him the throne of His father David. And He will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of His kingdom there will be no end.” Luke 1:31-33
An angel of God appeared to the Virgin Mary and told her that she would conceive in her womb and give birth to a Son she was to name Jesus, meaning Jehovah (or Yahweh) saves. He would be called the Son of the Highest because He is the eternal Son of God, and he would reign on the throne of His father David because he is a true man, descended from King David through the Virgin Mary. The kingdom of Jesus is the eternal kingdom made without hands, prophesied in Daniel 2:44.
Jesus — true God, Son of the Highest, and true man, born of the Virgin Mary — You came into this world to be my Savior by taking my place under the law and suffering the just punishment for my sins. Grant that I look to You and Your atoning sacrifice on the cross in faith and be pardoned and spared in the coming judgment. Amen.
“For You formed my inward parts; You covered me in my mother’s womb. I will praise You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made; marvelous are Your works, and that my soul knows very well. My frame was not hidden from You, when I was made in secret, and skillfully wrought in the lowest parts of the earth. Your eyes saw my substance, being yet unformed. And in Your book they all were written, the days fashioned for me, when as yet there were none of them.” Psalm 139:13-16
Though God created the first man from the dust of the ground and the first woman from the man’s rib, He formed each of us in our mother’s womb. We were no accident. God created and intricately formed each of our bodies and gave us life. Not only did He give us life, but the days of our earthly lives were already known by Him and written in His book before a single one of them existed.
You knew me, O God, and formed me in my mother’s womb. Your intricate creative work is amazing! Even the days of my life were known and determined by You before I lived a single day. Grant me the wisdom to use my body and the time You have given me in this world to worship and honor You and look to You for my salvation. In Jesus’ name, I pray. Amen.
“And the LORD God caused a deep sleep to fall on Adam, and he slept; and He took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh in its place. Then the rib which the LORD God had taken from man He made into a woman, and He brought her to the man. And Adam said: ‘This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man.’” Genesis 2:21-23
The LORD God created Adam from the dust of the ground. He made woman from a rib of Adam and brought her to Adam to be his wife — “a helper comparable to him” (Gen. 2:18). As Adam stated, “Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and they shall become one flesh” (Gen. 2:24) — one new family unit — and this remains God’s purpose and design to this day.
We praise You, O God, for creating woman to be a helper and partner to man and for instituting marriage as the life-long union of a man and a woman. Amen.
“And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being.” Genesis 2:7
The LORD God formed Adam’s body from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and Adam became a living being. Adam was alive physically, with a living and breathing body, and spiritually, knowing God and His will and loving and trusting God and honoring God as his Maker. John’s Gospel tells us of Jesus, God’s Son, that “all things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made. In Him was life, and the life was the light of men” (John 1:3-4). It was Jesus who breathed into Adam’s nostrils the breath of life.
We thank You, dear Lord Jesus, for both creating us and giving us life and for redeeming us by giving Your life in our stead when You died on the cross. Amen.
“Then God said, ‘Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.’ So God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.” Genesis 1:26-27
The eternal God — Father, Son, and Holy Spirit — created mankind in His own image, meaning that man was like God in that he had a true knowledge of God and lived according to the truth God had revealed. As a result, man honored God as his Maker, trusted God, truly loved God, and sought to bring God glory (cf. Eph. 4:24; Col. 3:10). God also created mankind male and female and commanded them to reproduce and fill the earth (Gen. 1:28), meaning that the biological differences between a man and a woman are according to God’s creative purpose and design rather than man’s choice.
Grant that I recognize the truth, O God, and honor You as my all-wise Creator and my loving and merciful Redeemer. In Jesus’ name, I pray. Amen.
