Genesis 1:26-28, Psalm 127:3, John 10:10, and Romans 6:4-5
We are a people obsessed with life. We buy multivitamins and new shoes. We research sleep and track our steps. Some of us reach for creams that promise younger skin or dye our hair the color it was twenty years ago. We do all of this — almost instinctively — because something deep inside us refuses to let go of life. We want more of it. Better of it. Longer of it.
That longing is not a flaw. It is a signal.
If we are so hardwired to treasure life, perhaps the question we should be asking is not how do I keep it — but where did it come from in the first place?
God Is the Author of Life
The Bible doesn’t make us wait long for an answer. On the very first page, in the very first book — whose name in Hebrew literally means the beginning — God speaks life into existence.
“Then God said, ‘Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness…’ So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.” — Genesis 1:26-27
This is one of the most stunning declarations in all of Scripture. Every human being — not some, not the strong or the wise or the successful — every human being is stamped in the image of God. We are not accidents. We are not evolved animals who happened to develop self-awareness. We are image-bearers of the living God, set apart from all of creation with a dignity and a worth that is not earned and cannot be taken away.
This is why human life is sacred. It is why we protect it at its most vulnerable — in the womb, in the hospital bed, in the war zone, in the prison cell. The moment we forget that God is the author of life, we find ourselves treating it as disposable. History — and our present headlines — show us exactly where that path leads.
God did not just create life. He breathed it. Genesis 2 tells us God formed Adam from the dust of the earth and breathed his breath directly into that first human being. Life is not something we manufacture. It is something we receive — intimately, personally, from the very lungs of God.
Mothers: Stewards of the Sacred
After creating the first man and woman, God gave them a mandate: “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth.”(Genesis 1:28)
He could have kept making people himself. Instead, he handed the work of image-bearing forward — to us. To couples. To families. To mothers.
Psalm 127:3 captures this beautifully: “Children are a heritage from the Lord, offspring a reward from him.” Children are not an achievement to unlock or a burden to manage. They are a gift entrusted to us from the God who authored their very breath.
Motherhood, then, is not simply a biological role or a cultural expectation. It is a participation in the creative work of God. Every mother who carries a child, raises a child, fosters a child, adopts a child, or pours herself into the next generation is joining something God began at the very start of creation.
This calling looks different for different women. Some give birth. Some adopt or foster. Some pour into nieces and nephews, or children in their church, neighborhood, or classroom. The path to motherhood is rarely simple and sometimes painfully hard — miscarriage, infertility, fear, poverty, loneliness. But God sees every version of this calling. He honors every woman who says yes to nurturing the life he has authored.
If that is you — whether or not today is easy, whether or not you feel celebrated — know this: what you do matters eternally. You are not just raising a child. You are shaping an image-bearer of the Most High God.
Jesus: Life Beyond the Grave
Physical life is a stunning gift. But when Jesus arrived on the scene, he announced something even greater was available.
“I came that they may have life and have it abundantly.” — John 10:10
He was not talking about more years or better health. He was talking about a life that does not decay. A life that goes beyond the grave. A life with our heavenly Father that is immortal, incorruptible, and absolutely without end.
This is Jesus’ offer to every person who has ever drawn breath: eternal life, not earned but received, not deserved but freely given — at the cost of his own.
But a gift left unopened is no blessing. To receive what Jesus offers, we must be willing to lay down what we have been holding. We must turn from our sin, surrender our self-authored story, and place our lives in his hands. We must say — perhaps for the first time, perhaps again today — Jesus, I believe you. I need you. Lead me.
That decision changes everything. Not just where we go when we die, but how we live right now. It reorients us around a purpose bigger than ourselves, a love deeper than we’ve known, and a hope that the world cannot give and cannot take away.
Baptism: The Picture of It All
There is a reason the church has practiced baptism since the very beginning. It is not an arbitrary ritual. It is a picture — a physical, visible sign of a spiritual reality.
The apostle Paul explains it this way:
“We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life. For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we will certainly also be united with him in a resurrection like his.” — Romans 6:4-5
Going under the water is death — death to the old life, the life we tried to write ourselves. Coming up out of the water is resurrection — the new, eternal life that Christ purchased for us on Easter morning, now available to us.
Two women stepped into those waters recently at our church. A young mom who found her faith deepen through the very act of mothering — and a grandmother who walked a long and winding road before finally surrendering to the God who never stopped pursuing her. Two different stories. Two different paths. One Author who wrote them both.
He is writing yours, too.
A Thread Running Through Everything
Mother’s Day and baptism might seem like an unlikely pairing on the same Sunday. But they are really two angles on the same story — the story of life.
One celebrates the women God has entrusted with the sacred, exhausting, irreplaceable work of bringing and raising life into the world. The other celebrates the moment a person steps from ordinary life into the extraordinary life that Jesus makes available to anyone who will receive it.
God authored life at the beginning. He sustains it through mothers and families and communities. He redeems it through the death and resurrection of his Son. And one day, he will perfect it — in a new heaven and a new earth, where every image-bearer finally lives in the fullness of the life they were always made for.
That is the thread running through every page of Scripture. That is the thread running through every birth and every baptism.
And it is the thread God wants to run through your life, too.
For Reflection
- Where do you see evidence in your own life that you were made in God’s image?
- Who in your life has served as a steward of life for you — biological mother or not?
- Have you personally received the gift of life that Jesus offers? If not, what is holding you back?
- How might you participate in the ongoing work of nurturing life — physically or spiritually — in the people around you?
“I came that they may have life and have it abundantly.” — Jesus, John 10:10
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