Scripture References: Psalm 8
The second most important question that has ever been asked is confronted in this psalm. The most important question is: “What do you think about the Christ?” (Matthew 22:42). That is the basic question of life for all of us. Until you properly answer that question, none of the others matter. What one does with Jesus Christ is the bedrock, foundational question, and pursuit in every person’s heart.
The second most important question is found in verse 4 of this psalm. “What is man that You are mindful of him, And the son of man that You visit him?” Who am I? What did God make me to be? What kind of being is man? Charles Darwin postulated that man is merely a highly developed animal. Is that what man is? Sigmund Freud’s concept was that man was just an underdeveloped child. Karl Marx stated that man is basically an economic factor in the world. Isaiah, pooling the collective wisdom of mankind, wrote that all men are like grass, and he magnified the temporary nature of man on this earth, in the fact that we are quickly passing away.
Is there an answer to the riddle of mankind? What is man? What is the “son of man” that God visits him or that God is concerned for him?
Whatever answer mankind may give to the question, “What is man?” God is the only one who has the right answer. Psalm 8 presents God’s answer to the riddle of mankind, the question, What is man? God answers and asserts that He created us to be kings, to have dominion, to have authority. He fashioned mankind as the apex, the climax, the crowning achievement of His creative genius. Man was created by God, but the problem is that we don’t act like royalty. Our crowns have become tarnished. In fact, history demonstrates that we act more like slaves than sovereigns, more like knaves than kings. What happened? People through the ages have remarked, “I don’t understand why God created mankind the way it is.” Here’s the truth: God didn’t create mankind the way it is, though He knew it would become the way it is.
God created only two people, and He was perfectly delighted with them. He saw that His work was “good” and “very good.” What we look with abhorrence at today is not mankind as God created it but mankind as sin has made it, as it has dethroned him, has debased him, and defiled him. So the perfect image God had in His heart for mankind was before sin entered into human experience. God created mankind for dominion, to have authority, to be “crowned . . . with glory and honor.” Man lost the royal nature that was in him. How can we restore that position? How does one recapture what God intended us to be? How do we live up to our full potential, reach that possibility God has desired for us?
Within every person’s heart, is an emptiness, a deep-down hunger that is filled only in God. Only as God is given liberty to move into our lives do we ever begin to reach our intended potential. Does or can an individual ever become what God created him to be and what he in his heart longs to be? This psalm answers that question. The first point and the last point are the same. The first point I call God’s praise from verse 1. The last point is God’s position ending in verse 9.
To Be Continued
FOR THE LOVE OF GOD 
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