When we think of all the problems and sufferings we are going through in this world, the descriptions of God’s creation of human beings in Gen 1 and 2 sound very unreal. If the Bible is right, why has our world become the world we know today?

Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move along the ground (Gen 1:26).”

We humans were created in God’s image and in his likeness. That means that we are like God. And we are to rule over this world as kings. Wow! But, are we really living as ones like God, and ruling as kings today?

God blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air and over every living creature that moves on the ground (v. 28).”

According to this scripture, God’s blessings are always upon us, and all living things and all that exist in this world are blessed through us who rule.

Then God said, “I give you every seed-bearing plant on the face of the whole earth and every tree that has fruit with seed in it. They will be yours for food (v. 29).

God saw all that he had made, and it was very good. And there was evening, and there was morning—the sixth day (v. 30).

Wow, again! If this is right, why are we still working for living trying to meet our own needs? Something must have gone wrong, very wrong!

Because you listened to your wife

And ate from the tree about which I commanded you,

‘You must not eat of it,’

Cursed is the ground because of you;

Through painful toil you will eat of it all the days of your life.

It will produce thorns and thistles for you,

And you will eat the plants of the field.

By the sweat of your brow you will eat your food

Until you return to the ground,

Since from it you were taken;

For dust you are and to dust you will return (3:17-19).

I see. This sounds more familiar to us. This is the world we know today. We make every endeavor to live till the last drop of our sweat, but at the end we all fail and die. How miserable! And on the way to our death, sickness, disasters, and the other sufferings attack us unexpectedly, and speed up the death with no time to enjoy anything. So now, we Christians, who are so accustomed to living in this world, should meditate upon the following scripture:

For if, by the trespass of the one man, death reigned through that one man, how much more will those who receive God’s abundant provision of grace and of the gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man, Jesus Christ (Rom 5:17).