When I was a child, someone close to me thought they could motivate me
to do better by frequently asking me, “Why are you so stupid?” I didn’t know
how much this had affected me until I was a teenager and heard someone behind
me say, “Stupid!” At the word, I quickly turned around, thinking he was talking
to me.
Knowing Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord helped me to realize that
because God created me in His image (Gen. 1:27), I’m not stupid but am
“fearfully and wonderfully made” (Ps. 139:14). God declares that all He has
made is “very good” (Gen. 1:31), and the Psalms remind us that we are
“skillfully wrought” (Ps. 139:15).
The psalmist David describes how God knows each one of us intimately: “O
Lord, You have searched me and known me. You know my sitting down and my rising
up; You understand my thought afar off. You comprehend my path and my lying
down, and are acquainted with all my ways” (vv.1-3).
Not only are we wonderfully made, but because of Christ’s death on the
cross, we can also be wonderfully restored to a right relationship with God.
“If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation . . . . All this is from God, who
reconciled us to Himself through Christ” (2 Cor. 5:17-18 NIV).