Created by God

God has intent and purpose for our lives - He has created us and ordained us to reflect His glory. In Ephesians 2, we can read these words:
8 For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God,
9 not of works, lest anyone should boast.
10 For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.

Physically, we reflect the image of our Creator, and spiritually, He has given us the capacity to come to know Him through Jesus Christ.  But, we are born into a fallen world, and our spirits must be redeemed, transformed by the power of God, so that we can become His followers, His disciples. He has given us His Word and desires for each of us to know His truth.  We can rejoice in the God who has made us and invites us to experience eternal and abundant life.

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We cannot deny that each of us represents the work of Almighty God, born with a physical body that reflects incredible intricacy and designed to function according to His intent. Psalm 139 states:
13 For You formed my inward parts; You covered me in my mother's womb.
14 I will praise You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made; Marvelous are Your works, And that my soul knows very well.
15 My frame was not hidden from You, When I was made in secret, And skillfully wrought in the lowest parts of the earth.
16 Your eyes saw my substance, being yet unformed. And in Your book they all were written, The days fashioned for me, When as yet there were none of them.

The publication USA Today has announced its "Women of the Year," and one choice seems to be particularly, well, odd.  A Christian Post article states: that "The full list of USA Today’s Women of the Year...honors 'strong and resilient women who have been champions of change across the country, leading and inspiring as they promote and fight for equity, and give others a place to seek help and find hope.'"

That odd choice I mentioned is Dr. Rachel Levine, who is "trans-identified" and formerly known as Richard. The article says that, "In addition to serving as the assistant secretary of health, Levine leads the U.S. Public Health Service Commissioned Corps..."  The article notes:

When Levine became the first trans-identified four-star officer to serve in the U.S. Public Health Service Commissioned Corps, U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy contended that Levine had also become “the first female four-star officer to serve in the U.S. Public Health Service Commissioned Corps.” This did not sit well with Rep. Jim Banks...

Banks tweeted out, “Calling someone that was born and lived as a man for 54 years the first ‘female’ four-star officer is an insult to every little girl who dreams of breaking glass ceilings one day.” Banks was suspended from Twitter for another tweet on the same topic.  This is reminiscent of the banning of The Daily Citizen of Focus on the Family for a similar incident.

Nicole Russell of The Washington Examiner, wrote:

USA Today isn’t the only one to compile such a list. Insider posted a list of record-breaking women that included the fact that Pose star Michaela Jae "Mj" Rodriguez was the first trans actor to win a Golden Globe. Insider also has a compilation of all the transgender politicians, including Sarah McBride , the first transgender state senator in U.S. history.

Women did not work tirelessly to achieve the right to vote ... and then the right to work on equal terms ... and then the right to get a credit card without a cosigner just so transgender females could best them in track , on the swim team , and in high-ranking government positions.

The Post article also mentioned University of Pennsylvania swimmer Will Thomas, who now uses the name, Lia, because "he" is attempting to transition to a "she."  It says:

Thomas’ strong performance, especially compared with the athlete’s mediocre performance when previously competing on the men’s swimming team, is reinforcing concerns that the biological differences between men and women give biological males an unfair advantage over their biologically female counterparts in athletics.

FoxNews.com reports on a another social media incident involving the Christian satire site, The Babylon Bee.  The Fox site states, "The Christian satire site The Babylon Bee is refusing to back down after Twitter locked its account over a tweet naming U.S. Assistant Secretary for Health Dr. Rachel Levine the satire site's "Man of the Year" for 2022."  Twitter says that the Bee has violated its "hateful conduct" policy. 

The Daily Citizen reported on this development, with Jeff Johnston writing this:

Levine told USA Today of his concern for “the challenges women and girls face related to body image, saying “We need to be welcoming and celebratory for women of all aspects of all sizes and shapes.”

USA Today asked Levine, “What is your definition of courage?”

Dr. Levine responded, “I think my definition of courage would be to be true to yourself, be true to who you are and then to pay that forward, to work towards the common good. That’s what I have always tried to do.”

Rather than adhering to the anodyne cliché, “Be true to yourself,” with its individualized, changeable, internal definition of truth, Dillon and The Bee are holding to real objective truth: Men and women are different, men can’t change into women, and women can’t change into men.

The company was told by Twitter that its account could be re-opened if it deleted the post

The CEO responded, “We’re not deleting anything. Truth is not hate speech. If the cost of telling the truth is the loss of our Twitter account, then so be it.”

Seth Dillon is the CEO of The Babylon Bee.

Someone might say that the Christian community is making a big deal out of nothing - but what's really at stake here is the truth, as Jeff Johnston of Focus directly stated: "Men and women are different, men can’t change into women, and women can’t change into men."  As you'll hear on tomorrow's Meeting House program, a person's belief that he or she is in the "wrong" body is a dangerous deception and attempting to make changes is not the right course - for Laura Beth Perry, attempting to find satisfaction by changing her gender did not produce the satisfaction she sought - her identity as a woman was ultimately found in Christ. 

The notion that gender was "assigned" to a person is actually true - it was assigned to us by our Creator. To reject the way we were made is to deny the handiwork of Almighty God.  And, isn't it interesting that the LGBTQ movement has been declaring that people are "born that way" also say that gender is fluid. But sexual orientation is not?  Truth is that biology is another field of science that will ultimately lead us to explore that we as humans are fearfully and wonderfully made, as the Scripture says.  While our bodies are created by the hand of God, we also recognize that we were born into sin and need to be redeemed; when we know Christ, we can embrace His truth and allow Him to renew our minds so that we can walk in His image.