Love Every Heartbeat

Do you believe that human life has value? And not just a casual with a shrug of your shoulders, “Yeah, I believe life matters.”

But I mean do you believe that life, your life and others’ lives, matter? That you’re actually worth something?

So many people try to put a price on humans. Maybe not an actual price tag like one finds in the store, but a price, nonetheless. Whenever we are ashamed of the blemishes on our skin or think we need to lose weight to be loved, we’re putting an unspoken price on ourselves and others. We’re saying, even without actually saying anything that we’re not enough as we are.

We are saying that we have to do more to be more, but in truth, we already have value because we are uniquely created in God’s image.

In Genesis 1:26 God says, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness.” A few verses later, it reads, “God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.”

The first time that humans are ever mentioned in Scripture, we are told that we are made in the image of God. He didn’t just throw us together without a second thought, but He made us to be like him. To love as He does. To have feelings and emotions.

The rest of His creation was not made in His image. Cats and dogs can’t love the way God has enabled us to, and the creeping crawlies that creep on the earth don’t have the same characteristics that we do.

We are uniquely made, and if you want to read how we are Different from other parts of God’s creation, I encourage you to read the article I wrote for Oh Beloved One magazine.

Let me clarify something. God loves His creation. The Bible records at the end of the six days of creation, “God saw that it was good.” He cares about all that He has made. Even the sparrows and the lilies of the field.

And He has a unique affection for humans because we were created in His image.

Matthew 6:26 says, “Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they?” And continuing a few verses later Jesus adds, “But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is alive and tomorrow thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith?”

“But God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8). (Italics added for emphasis.)

That’s how much He loves us. That act of love and sacrifice that Jesus did for us was only done for the human race. Not any other aspect of His creation.

And just as Jesus loved us, we also are to love one another.

“Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love. In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him. In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God abides in us and his love is perfected in us.” 1 John 4:7-12.

But sadly, we don’t always treat each other as if we have any worth. Sometimes, we don’t even treat ourselves as if we have any worth.

When we treat another as inferior, we are silently agreeing with the Enemy’s lie that they are worthless. Satan wants others to doubt their worth and question who they are, but that’s not what Jesus wants.

Jesus died for us because He loves us. He died for people of every race. Why?

Because not one mattered or was more important to Him than the other.

All races are created in the image of God, and Jesus died for all of them.

Not some of them.

Not just for the ones who think they’re superior to another.

As Revelation 5:9b says, “[Jesus was] slain, and by [His] blood [He] ransomed people for God from every tribe and language and people and nation.”

The phrase “Every life matters” applies to even the unborn.

We agree with the Enemy’s lies when we believe that it’s just a mass of tissue in the womb instead of believing what God says in Jeremiah 1:5, “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born I consecrated you” and Psalm 139:13 which says, “For you formed my inward parts; you knitted me together in my mother’s womb.”

When men, women, and children are sold and treated as prostitutes, we are saying that their life doesn’t matter. That they aren’t worth anything.

If we say we believe that every life matters, then we must live like it. We must love other people, spend time listening to them and praying for them, not shunning them when they come to us broken. After all, we are just as broken as they are.

We must not let the culture, media, or society tell us who we are and what our worth is. To believe another’s worth has value, we must first believe our own life has value.

So many people aren’t comfortable in their own skin, thinking they’re too shy or loud, they have too many flaws and blemishes, and that they’re not enough.

Friend, Jesus doesn’t look at the skin and the outside appearance. He looks at the heart.

Jesus died for you just as you are, not for the person you wish you were.

Your life matters. I know it might be hard to believe sometimes, but please do. Believe it. Live like it and treat others as if they matter.

Because they do.

You matter.

Your life has meaning and purpose, and you were created on purpose, for a reason.

Now, go, and love like Jesus loved because all lives matter.

NOTE: Love Every Heartbeat is a movement closely associated with Focus on the Family. Please consider joining the movement and help to love every heartbeat.

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