doctor's life support

26th March: God doesn't make Junk

By the grace of God I am what I am. 1 Corinthians 15:10

It was certainly an unusual piece of graffiti, and I wondered who had thought it up. Graffiti are usually provocative, often querulous and sometimes unprintable. But this one had a special quality. `God made me and he doesn't make junk', it said with an air almost of defiance. Certainly it breathed confidence. And the joy of it was that the confidence was not self-confidence but God-confidence.

As a condensed piece of theology (with something of a medical slant) it covered by implication a lot of ground. It applied to God's original creation and to his new creation. In a fair expansion of this thought, the unknown graffiti writer was saying: `God made me in his image (Gn 1:26-27); Jas 3:9). I am fearfully and wonderfully made (Ps 139:14 AV). In Christ I am a new creation (Rom 8:29). And it is solely "by the grace of God that I am what I am".'

It is well if we can with the same joyful humble confidence also say: `God made me and he doesn't make junk', and go on to sing with Charles Wesley:

Finish, then, thy new creation;
Pure and spotless let us be;
Let us see they great salvation,
Perfectly restored in thee.
Changed from glory into glory,
Till in heaven we take our place,
Till we cast our crowns before thee,
Lost in wonder, love and praise.

Further reading: All the references quoted are worth looking up in their context.

RRW