Sunday Hymn: Blest Be the Tie That Binds

Blest be the tie that binds
Our hearts in Christian love;
The fellowship of kindred minds
Is like to that above.

Before our Father’s throne
We pour our ardent prayers;
Our fears, our hopes, our aims are one
Our comforts and our cares.

We share each other’s woes,
Our mutual burdens bear;
And often for each other flows
The sympathizing tear.

When we asunder part,
It gives us inward pain;
But we shall still be joined in heart,
And hope to meet again.

This glorious hope revives
Our courage by the way;
While each in expectation lives,
And longs to see the day.

From sorrow, toil and pain,
And sin, we shall be free,
And perfect love and friendship reign
Through all eternity.

—John Fawcett

Other hymns, worship songs, sermons etc. posted today:

• Update: O For a Heart to Praise My God at Still Reforming
• Lord, It Belongs Not to My Care at Whatever Things
• Soldiers of Christ, Arise at Field Stone Cottage
• And Can It Be That I Should Gain at Rosemary at Home
• Searcher of Hearts, from Mine Erase at The Happy Wonderer
• What Wondrous Love Is This at Conjubilant With Song
• Lord’s Day 13 at Tried With Fire 
• Faith Alone - March 25, 2012 at The Upward Call
• Lord’s Day 13, 2012 at The Thirsty Theologian
• A Sunday Psalm: The Treasury of David - Psalm 3:2-3 at Theology for Girls
• Update: Your Weekly Dose of Spurgeon at Pyromaniacs: True Wisdom Is Not Academic

Have you posted a hymn (or sermon, sermon notes, prayer, etc.) today and I missed it? Let me know by leaving a link in the comments or by contacting me using the contact form linked above, and I’ll add your post to the list.

Round the Sphere Again: Working Well

In the Home
Two practical posts from Rachel Meeks (Small Notebook) on keeping a home clean and orderly.

• Make a Weekly Cleaning Routine. A common sense post that includes a blank template to help the reader work out a cleaning schedule appropriate to their unique situation.
• How to Make It Easier to Clean Kids Rooms. If you have young children, this might be a help. (I know from experience that things get more complicated when they get a little older. I’ve been told that some teens have neat and organized rooms, but I’ve never actually seen it.)

As a Christian
Two on vocation:

• Which Vocations Should Be Off Limits to Christians (Gene Veith at The Gospel Coalition Voices). I’m not sure I agree with every jot and tittle of this article, but it’s very useful for working through the question of whether there are some jobs Christians should avoid. And I especially appreciated this point:

  Before God all vocations are equal. But that is not so in the world. Often the highest-paying and the highest-status jobs do less for the neighbor than do jobs that the world tends to look down upon. I am ready to concede that the professional athlete and the movie star have legitimate vocations in giving brief moments of pleasure to millions of people. But the love and service rendered by the men who pick up our garbage every week or the women who clean up our hotel rooms is far more immediate and far more important.

• 7 Motives in Our Work (Matt Perman). “By doing good work and enjoying it, for the glory of God and good of others, you not only serve your workplace, but, through that, you serve and transform society as well.”

In God's Image

“Whoever sheds human blood,

by other humans

must his blood be shed;

for in God’s image

God has made humankind.”

(Genesis 9:6 NET)

God values human life. He values it so much that he requires the life be taken from anyone who kills another human being. God made humans in his own image and this is the reason he values each human life so highly.

Our true significance, then, lies in the image of God that we bear. God sees the reflection of himself in each one of us, and that is why each life is so important to him. It is not our ability or our complexity, but simply our humanity, because being human makes us bearers of God’s image.

We aren’t told exactly what being made in God’s image entails, so we need to be careful when we define the image of God. I’ve seen lists of things that being made in God’s image includes, like rationality, the ability to make choices, and delegated dominion over the earth, and undoubtedly these are part of the picture. But it seems to me that it’s more correct to think of these things as traits that result from being made in God’s image rather than traits that define it. The essence of image bearing is simply being human. 

The problem with writing lists of traits to help define what it means to be made in God’s image is that for every list, there will human beings unable to do what’s listed. There will be human beings who are less able to do what’s listed than some animals are, yet have much more value to God because when he looks at them he sees his own image. Animals are certainly important to him because they are his handiwork; I have no doubt that he enjoys them and values them—and so should we. Humans are God’s handiwork too, but we have more going for us. What makes humankind more significant than the rest of God’s creatures is that human beings are the ones who carry his image. If someone is human, they are of great value to God, and they should be of great value to us, too.

It really doesn’t matter whether a particular human life can interact with us or is even aware it exists. These things aren’t factors in the value God places on a life and shouldn’t be factors in the value we place on it, either. If the life is human, we need to value it as a life made in God’s image and do what we can to preserve it and care for it. God, whose image it is that gives each human life its value, has a unique right to either take human life or stipulate the circumstances under which it is permissible and right for it to be taken. 

“Thou shalt not kill” isn’t a commandment I’m likely to break—not directly, anyway. But am I keeping it? What am I doing to show that I value all human life the way God does? How am I working to preserve it? What am I doing to care for others made in God’s image?