This week’s reading: Genesis 1:1— 2:3
Hi Friends,
Happy New Year! I do hope you all enjoyed, and learned much from, our journey through the Gospel of Mathew last year. It was exciting for me to blend the Gospels together in many of the articles as we explored the incredible Life, sacrificial death and life-giving Resurrection of our Jesus. One of the countless benefits of reading God’s Word is all the lessons we can continually learn to apply to our own lives. These messages can, not only improve the quality of our lives, but hopefully, will touch those around us as well.
Since it is a New Year, we will begin a new theme this week. I would like to take us to “the beginning” and walk through the Book of Genesis this year, so that we can see God’s original Plan. We will talk about what went right, and what went horribly wrong. We will learn from some of the amazing saints like Noah, Abraham, Jacob and Joseph. And we will also see our Jesus in the midst of it all too. You see, the entire Bible, both Old Testament and New, are all about Him. The whole point to reading the Bible is to meet, to get to know and to imitate Jesus. The Old Testament prophesies about His coming. The Gospels proclaim His Identity. And the rest of the Bible teaches us how to imitate Jesus. Before Jesus became incarnate, the Son of God was intimately involved in every part of Creation. God, as the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, has been working throughout Time as we know it, to draw us to His side so that we may be called the children of God. Today, let’s look at Creation and see if we can notice the hand of each of the Three Persons of this Holy Trinity, and how the Love of God shone through each of Them towards a world that, 1- does not deserve His Love and 2- must learn to receive His Grace with every decision we make. I hope to bring in other Scriptures so we can get a bigger picture of God’s Goodness towards us rebellious humans, as well as His Kindness and Understanding heart towards us. So here we go, we are in Genesis chapter 1 all the way through to chapter 2, verse 3…let’s listen to the first couple of verses, and praise Him for the beautiful world He has gifted us:
“In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters. And God said, ‘Let there be light,’ and there was light.” Gen 1:1-3 NIV
Let there be light. Please never forget that the Bible is not a science book. It is however an accurate History book, which focuses on His Story. So as we read about the fact that God created everything that you and I can see, hear, smell, taste and touch, Scripture does not go into detail about HOW God created it all. And I do believe this was on purpose, of course, because you and I would not be able to grasp that kind of creative power anyway. While humans work with their hands and manipulate material objects, God does not need any of that through which to create. God alone can make everything from nothing at all. Can we conceive of this, my Friends? No, no we cannot and so these details cannot be explained in a way our human minds would understand. One of our human “laws of physics” known as “the Law of Conservation of Mass” tells us that “Matter can neither be created nor destroyed.” While we can transform matter from one thing to another, think water turning to ice here, not one atom is lost in the process of this transformation. Once God created matter, He placed this law in place so that nothing He made would be able to be lost, at least until the end of Time…and He created Time too, by the way. Here’s an example of how our tiny human brains start to hurt when trying to encompass the full knowledge of our Creator: God exists outside of Time, Matter and Space as we know it. Maybe this example can help us start to understand Him: think of a human who creates a computer. That human does not live inside the computer and so is not subject to the “laws,” or programs, that the computer must abide by, right? This is sort of the same thing here. God as our Creator is not bound by the laws of Time, Matter and Space that we humans must live by. I know now I am getting into things that are better left for science geeks like me. Just remember, again, the purpose of Holy Scripture is not to teach us the things about God that we simply cannot understand. It is, however, meant to reveal the Love of our Creator through the ways He interacts with real human beings. From Adam and Eve through Moses and David and with Peter and Paul, the way God relates to these saints is the way He desires to relate to each of us too. As our Holy Father, He must discipline us if He truly loves us. As the Son, He can empathize with all of our challenges in this world, since He went through His own battles and won the war for us all. As our Holy Spirit, He will counsel and comfort and guide and convict and…and He will lead us into all Truth, if we choose to work with Him. (Jn 16:13) And so there are countless lessons you and I can learn about Who our Father is, how our Savior can empower us and when the Holy Spirit draws us to God, even as we are straying from His side. The main purpose of the Bible is to reveal God to His creation so that we may desire to truly be His here, and then forevermore. The center of the Bible is not Humanity, but it is all about God, and teaching us about the Immaculate Character of this, our Marvelous Creator. In the beginning, God already knew we would each go astray and He knew He would have to provide The Way so we could be saved. (see Isa 53:6 & 1Pe 1:20) The Bible is God’s Love Letter to us, those who choose to hear His call and surrender our lives to Him. When we begin to see this Love in all God has created, we are hopefully drawn to God’s Presence where we may find the true life He always desired us to have, enjoy and share with Him and one another. God created it all to show us how great His Love is and then inspired a mere man to write it all down so the rest of us may begin this amazing relationship with our Marvelous Creator.
Seven days. Is that seven literal 24 hour days or thousands of years which are like seven days to God? (2Pe 3:8) This is a debate that I will not get into here because I am just not qualified to do so. Again, God exists outside of Time, Matter and Space as we know it, so I think only God knows the complete answer to this, and many other questions we might come up with. But fighting over these details can distract from the truth that God created everything that is seen…and unseen…and that is the point to these first chapters. God is the only Source of all Life. Without Him nothing and no one would exist. But did you know there are whole other “worlds” that humans are not able to see? Whether this is in the physical realm with tiny bacteria and mites or the deepest and darkest parts of the ocean, whether this means the far outreaches of our solar systems and beyond, or whether it even means the spiritual realm which we cannot see unless God reveals it to us (check out the events with Elisha and his servant in 2Ki 6:16-17), there are just some things you and I will never fully know this side of Heaven and we must learn to be ok with that. But this should not be a reason to doubt God, and it should not be a reason to begin arguments with our brothers and sisters in Christ by insisting our understanding, one way or the other, is the only possible right answer. So all this to say, God took His “time” (no pun intended), when He created this world we live in. The Bible says on the first day, God separated light from darkness, creating day and night, and He saw the light was good. (Gen 1:4-5) On the second day, God continued His work by separating the water from the sky, creating clouds, from the waters of the earth, making oceans. (Gen 1:6-8) On the third day, God moved the water on earth to one side and dry ground appeared. Then He commanded this dry ground to produce vegetation with seeds according to each kind, so that they may be able to continue multiplying throughout the earth. Plants had seeds that would continue making more of the same types of plants, and trees had fruit with seeds that would do the same. God saw all this and proclaimed it all to be good. (Gen 1:9-13) On the fourth day, God created the different seasons, days and years by setting into place the sun and moon, as well as the stars, to shine light onto the earth. Again God saw that it was good. (Gen 1:14-19) The fifth day, God created all the creatures of the sea and all the winged birds, each according to their own kind. God also blessed these creatures and commanded them to be fruitful and fill the earth. Again, He saw that it was all good. (Gen 1:20-23) Then on the sixth day, God created all air-breathing animals, including mankind. The big difference here though is that, God deliberately paused between creating land animals and creating mankind. And why? To purposely fashion humans to be the Crown of His Creation by making us in His Image. God stopped and 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, my emphasis) Can you see how distinct we are, my Friends? We are as far from an evolved monkey as a T-Rex dinosaur is from a tiny goldfish! (please see 1Co 15:39) Each animal, bird and fish have their own distinct flesh, and humans especially, were created to be completely different than any other lifeforms because we are made in our Creator’s Image, more on this in a minute. (Gen 1:24-31) Lastly, God looked over all He had created and proclaimed it all to be very good, and so He rested… not because He was exhausted from all He had done, and just had to take a break, of course. God rested because He ceased creating new things from nothing. He rested because He had finished making all things He had planned to make. He rested because He wanted to sit back and enjoy it all. And God rested as an example to humans too. You know the saying, “All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.” God wants to enjoy what He has created, and He wants the Crown of His Creation, you and me, to enjoy all of life too. And when God rested, it was all very good. Notice nothing was evil, nothing was corrupt, nothing was sinful on earth. What God created was not only good, but very good. And it was very good because God is a very, very Good God!
God is Good. Again I stress, each human, whether they acknowledge it or not, is created in the Image of God. We have been given a spirit through which we are able to connect with God. We have been given a soul, so we may think, feel and will like God. And we have been given a body through which we may interact with this physical world God has created for us. God also gave mankind the position and privilege to have dominion over all that He designed. We were always meant to rule over Creation, by taking care of and managing it, just like our King of kings rules over life by taking care and managing all of it. We were to serve as stewards of all that God made, making sure that everything and everyone would be fruitful and multiply, as well as would live in unity and harmony. Well, we all know this did not last, but this was God’s original Plan. Everyone and everything was to lovingly serve each other, providing nutrition for our bodies, companionship for our souls and a spirit of overwhelming gratitude towards our Marvelous Creator Who gave us all this world’s beauty. This is meant to connect us— spirit, soul and body— to God so we may walk with our Creator in peace and joy for all Time. Again, we know what happened, but it is vital that we see this here in the narrative of Creation: God had, and still has a Plan for Humanity. You can check out the chart below in this article to get an overview of what God created and when, but I point us again to the process He underwent to show us how orderly, systematic and purposeful our God is when He created the world we live in. These are all required when making a successful Plan. Without order, only chaos would have remained. Without an efficient system, there would have been much waste of resources. Without purpose, nothing would really matter. No, God had a Plan and it was all very good…then the first children chose to act childish and…well, more on that next week. But please see that God is a God of order, not chaos. God is a God of efficiency, not wastefulness. God is a God of purpose, not senselessness. And so He created humans to continue this orderly living, to make sure everyone and everything was given sufficient provisions, and to live on purpose for the purpose of glorifying the Creator of it all. We were always meant to point to the Goodness of our God, not to ourselves. But in came that serpent…and wow, I really want to move ahead to The Downfall, but again that’s next week’s talk. Here let’s pause a moment and simply be grateful for God’s original Plan, as well as for The Provision, our Jesus, to move Humanity back towards that first original design. Praise God that He never gives up on His Creation.
God never gives up, but do we? One of the gifts God granted Humanity is the incredible power of Free Will. God allows us, His young, newly formed Homo sapiens, to make all sorts of decisions, the most vitally important one being whether we will surrender to Him as our Savior or not. This is the number one question every individual human being must come to terms with. Even though we each have strayed and gone very far from God’s original Plan, God had promised The Seed would come and make a New Way for us to be with our Creator, not just in this world, but forevermore.(see Gen 3:15) See God’s loving hand in Creation. See God’s gracious understanding in provision. And take some time every day, seven days a week, to rest and enjoy all God has made. We too are to work for six days so we can 1- separate the light within us from any darkness that might still be lingering in our hearts. So we can 2- begin to set our eyes above on the realm of Heaven and to focus less on this world below. So we can 3- do what we can to make sure this planet can continue to have healthy, nourishing plants and fruit trees. So we can 4- walk by God’s Light whether when all is well in our day (reflecting the greater Light) or when things seem to be overly challenging in our nights (reflecting a lesser light). So we can 5- fly high above the problems of this world by swimming deeply in the Love and Grace of God. So we can 6- take care of all the animals that roam on earth, and more importantly, so we can love one another, the way God loves us. You see, there is so much we can learn from the account of how God created our world. I hope we all spend some time in these verses and allow the Holy Spirit to speak to our hearts this week. Then we will be able to 7- rest in His arms sensing the peace and joy that God alone can create within our own heart. One more time I will remind us, you were made in the Image of God. You can become more and more like Him, filled with love, peace, joy, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. (Gal 5:22-23) This is who God originally designed us to be, and because He so loved the world that He gave His one and only Begotten Son…we can return to this first, holy state. We can, if we surrender to God as our Marvelous Creator.
One more thing before we go, don’t miss the Holy Trinity in this work of Creation. God the Father is the brilliant mind behind this good Plan and all the good that is created. It was through God the Son that all things came into being and are held together. (Jn 1:3; Col 1:16-17) And God the Holy Spirit breathed life into all Creation as He hovered over the formless and empty earth. (Gen 1:2; 2:7; Job 33:4; Jn 6:63) And especially into the nostrils of Adam…more next week. God is One with Three distinct Persons, and so each member of the Holy Trinity had, and still has, Their part to play…and my Friends, if you have sincerely surrendered your life to Jesus as Lord and Savior, then you are now and forevermore a member of God’s Forever Family with your distinct part to play also. The more I understand this lovely truth, the more I desire to tell the whole world about our Marvelous Creator. And the more I do, the more abundant my own life gets. Want that too? Then won’t you join me?
Until we meet again, keep lifting your eyes to God, He’s closer than you think.
<>< Peace, Diane
