This week we've been focusing on God's creation and specifically on the pinnacle of creation--human beings.  To close out the week, let's look at God's new (at the time of Genesis2:21-24!) institution, designed for the fulfillment of human potential.  Clue:  It wasn't a government, a school, or even a church.  ²¹So the LORD God caused the man to fall into a deep sleep; and while he was sleeping, he took one of the man’s ribs^£ and closed up the place with flesh. ²²Then the LORD God made a woman from the rib^£ he had taken out of the man, and he brought her to the man. ²³The man said, “This is now bone of my bones  and flesh of my flesh;  she shall be called ‘woman,’ for she was taken out of man.” ²⁴For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh.

Who would have guessed that MARRIAGE between a man and a woman is the God-given institution designed to give a context for God's earlier command for human beings to be fruitful, multiply, subdue the earth and have dominion over it!  As I said on Sunday, that statement isn't politically correct in our day, but God's designs are always best.  They aren't old-fashioned.  They're original in the best sense of that word.  As we move into the second decade of the 21st century traditional marriage is under attack from nearly every angle, and yet God designed it, God blessed it, and God continues to uphold it.  Jesus affirmed the Genesis two mandate for a man to leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and become one flesh.  The Apostle Paul did the same in his letter to the Ephesians.  You may think, "That was 2,000 years ago."  True.  And when something is true it doesn't matter whether it was true 2,000 years ago or 2 minutes ago.  Remember, it doesn't matter what you believe, it matters what's true.  Society may give legal status to institutions that go contrary to God's institutions.  Society may altar God-given institutions so they don't reflect God's intention.  That won't change the truth of God's design, or the reality that only within God's design does any person, relationship, or institution receive blessing.  Pause for a moment and consider what would happen not only in America, but across the world, if the institution of marriage were lived out as God designed it when it was brand new.

Let's pray:  Heavenly Father, Thank You for giving us the institution of marriage, and for setting it forth in the order of creation as the means through which a man and woman would become a family, families would become communities, and the world would be populated and blessed.  Fill us with the Holy Spirit that we may live into this truth, and not seek to modify it for our own purposes.  This we pray in Jesus' name.  Amen.