God has a plan for every person He creates. He prepares our destiny before we are born (Ephesians 1:4;
2:10 and Psalm 139:16). Even more, He prepares our body for us. Each one is unique and different.
When God marvelously prepares our body in the utter seclusion of the womb He determines whether we will be male and female. He creates a specific male body for the male and a special female body for the female. There is something very special about the different sexes. That’s why we wait with baited breath to know whether our new baby will be a boy or a girl! And then we celebrate the sex of the child!
I believe that we should encourage our children in the way God created them. We should affirm our sons with their male body. God created them to be stronger to do hard physical work and to be able to provide and protect their families. We encourage them to be strong, hard-working, and not wimps. We should affirm our daughters that God created them so wondrously with bodies that have the privilege to conceive and bring forth life into the world. Our children should grow up embracing who God created them to be.
I am so challenged when I read about Jesus in Hebrews 10:5 where He states that His Father prepared a body for Him. Or rather “fitted for Him.” God planned and designed Jesus’ body, but also the purpose for His body before time began. He was the Lamb of God slain before the foundation of the world (1 Peter 1:19, 20 and Revelation 13:8).
Hebrews 10:5-10 goes on to tell us that the very purpose for His body was to be offered up as a sacrificial victim for the sins of the world. He gave His body as a willing sacrifice to obey His Father’s will. The fitting of his body was not only for His incarnation, but for obedience “even unto death” (Philippians 2:5-8). He didn’t do this grudgingly, but with delight (Psalm 40:6-8).
When God gives us a body, it is not to please ourselves, but to fulfil the purpose for which God created and planned before the foundation of the world. Because God chose by His determinate counsel to create us female, we must embrace our femaleness and live it for His glory. We must embrace the anointing to nurture and mother and bring precious and eternal babies into this world, not only for the revelation of God’s image in the world, but for His eternal kingdom.
And just as Jesus came to give His body as an offering, so we should also “present our bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service” (Romans 12:1,2).
Blessings from Nancy Campbell
Painting by Daniel Gerhartz