The Beginning!
In the beginning, God (prepared, formed, fashioned) created the heavens and the
earth. The earth was without form and an empty waste, and darkness was upon the face of the
very great deep. The Spirit of God was moving (hovering, brooding) over the face of the
waters. And God said, Let there be light; and there was light. And God saw that the light was
good (suitable, pleasant) and He approved it; and God separated the light from the darkness.
And God called the light Day, and the darkness He called Night. And there was evening and
there was morning, one day....
earth. The earth was without form and an empty waste, and darkness was upon the face of the
very great deep. The Spirit of God was moving (hovering, brooding) over the face of the
waters. And God said, Let there be light; and there was light. And God saw that the light was
good (suitable, pleasant) and He approved it; and God separated the light from the darkness.
And God called the light Day, and the darkness He called Night. And there was evening and
there was morning, one day....
 | |  | |  | |  | |  |
 |
| |
 |
| |
 |
| |
 |
| Naked & Unashamed! |
...God called the firmament Heavens...the second day
...God said Let the earth bring forth vegetation...and He approved it...the third day
...God made the two great lights - greater (sun) to rule the day and the lesser light (moon) to rule the night...separating the
light from the darkness...and He approved it...the fourth day!
...God said, Let the waters bring forth abundantly and swarm with living creatures, and let birds fly over the earth in the open
expanse of the heavens...God saw that it was good and He approved it...the fifth day!
...God made the beasts of the earth according to their kinds and domestic animals...and everything that creeps upon the
earth according to its kind. ...and He approved it! THEN God said, Let US make mankind in Our image, after Our
likeness....and He created them, male and female....and God saw everything that He had made, and behold, it was very good...
and He approved it completely...the sixth day!
...on the seventh day God ended His work and rested...and God blessed (set it apart) hallowed it, because on it God rested
from all His work which He had created and done.
(Gen 1 - paraphrased from the Amplified version)
| We've Come a Long Way, Baby! |
I try to imagine the breathtaking, awe-filled events of those first days with life shooting from every direction to fill the
emptiness of earth and the closest I get is a digitalized, orchestra filled version of something like Disney's Fantasmic.
However, an interesting thing does happen when you read Genesis 1 all the way through over and over again, don't you
begin to get a sense that the entire point of the rest of creation was those two people? I love how bible teacher,
Malcolm Smith describes it as new parents preparing a nursery. Their joy isn't in the nursery itself, it's in the satisfaction
of finally seeing their new baby in the nursery. Each time I read this account, through the lens of what we now know God
would one day do in our (His beloved creation) behalf, I can't help but see His excitement as He prepares this place
called earth which He knows will soon dwell these "little images of His likeness." - or man & woman.
Ok, so what's the point? What does this have to do with life today? Everything! There are two things here that completely
blows apart my old human view of God; both of which shout to me...and I hope it does to you, that the entire point of
creation and His subsequent life & death (in Christ) on earth was a love so alien to anything my head can wrap around.
1. There is no sense that God needed to create anything apart from Himself. There is a completeness in the phrase...Let
Us create...which tells me that He was not alone and needing a relationship. Once that is realized, it must also be
recognized that before all this creation happened, the entire universe would go His way. I had viewed God as a
controlling dictator before, but to recognize that the One WHO really IS in control of all things would create a
man/woman with a will/mind of their own...with the potential to rebel against His will is not controlling at all. He's not
manipulative or power-hungry but simply acting out of TRUTH...He IS in charge...He IS the Creator and not threatened ..
OR SURPRISED...by our choices.
2. If God is creator of all things, is outside of time and knows every thought and action before it came to be, then He
knew the choice that man would make in that garden...which means that He would have already decided before even
creating him, what He was willing to do should His creation choose death. (Actually, I believe He knew they WOULD
choose death). So, how exciting that we, meaning believers with a knowledge of the death & resurrection of Christ, can
look back at a real event in history when God, who is Spirit, invaded His own created earth, becoming one of it's
creatures and received (as that creature) the ultimate consequence...death. When that truth began to break up all those
preconceived ideas and humanistic views of a God who is separated, up there, over there...out there with little interest
in the everyday stresses of life, that truth can do little else than have the unbelievable and utter assurance that our God,
through Christ, declares once again that He is delighted with what He's created.
Consider how the disciple John, an old man, chained and exiled to a lonely island, forced to spend his last days
pointlessly breaking rocks in a quarry could leave us these words "See what an incredible quality of love the Father has
given (shown, bestowed) on us, that we should be named and counted the children of God! Given his situation, this is
an incredibly crazy statement...it doesn't make sense, and yet, he knows something beyond what the religion of his day
offered. He was, after all, exiled for embracing this thing called the gospel...the good news! I love how John ends that
sentence, though...as if to say, it doesn't look like it, it doesn't always feel like it, but...(children of God) WE ARE! This is
what we ARE apart from our behavior, circumstances or situations.
There is so much more there in those first chapters of Genesis that just chip away at the way most of us view God, our
self, others, life and love, but I'll never update this site if I keep writing, so I'll just leave it there with the hope that it
offers encouragement along with possibly a few things to think about.
emptiness of earth and the closest I get is a digitalized, orchestra filled version of something like Disney's Fantasmic.
However, an interesting thing does happen when you read Genesis 1 all the way through over and over again, don't you
begin to get a sense that the entire point of the rest of creation was those two people? I love how bible teacher,
Malcolm Smith describes it as new parents preparing a nursery. Their joy isn't in the nursery itself, it's in the satisfaction
of finally seeing their new baby in the nursery. Each time I read this account, through the lens of what we now know God
would one day do in our (His beloved creation) behalf, I can't help but see His excitement as He prepares this place
called earth which He knows will soon dwell these "little images of His likeness." - or man & woman.
Ok, so what's the point? What does this have to do with life today? Everything! There are two things here that completely
blows apart my old human view of God; both of which shout to me...and I hope it does to you, that the entire point of
creation and His subsequent life & death (in Christ) on earth was a love so alien to anything my head can wrap around.
1. There is no sense that God needed to create anything apart from Himself. There is a completeness in the phrase...Let
Us create...which tells me that He was not alone and needing a relationship. Once that is realized, it must also be
recognized that before all this creation happened, the entire universe would go His way. I had viewed God as a
controlling dictator before, but to recognize that the One WHO really IS in control of all things would create a
man/woman with a will/mind of their own...with the potential to rebel against His will is not controlling at all. He's not
manipulative or power-hungry but simply acting out of TRUTH...He IS in charge...He IS the Creator and not threatened ..
OR SURPRISED...by our choices.
2. If God is creator of all things, is outside of time and knows every thought and action before it came to be, then He
knew the choice that man would make in that garden...which means that He would have already decided before even
creating him, what He was willing to do should His creation choose death. (Actually, I believe He knew they WOULD
choose death). So, how exciting that we, meaning believers with a knowledge of the death & resurrection of Christ, can
look back at a real event in history when God, who is Spirit, invaded His own created earth, becoming one of it's
creatures and received (as that creature) the ultimate consequence...death. When that truth began to break up all those
preconceived ideas and humanistic views of a God who is separated, up there, over there...out there with little interest
in the everyday stresses of life, that truth can do little else than have the unbelievable and utter assurance that our God,
through Christ, declares once again that He is delighted with what He's created.
Consider how the disciple John, an old man, chained and exiled to a lonely island, forced to spend his last days
pointlessly breaking rocks in a quarry could leave us these words "See what an incredible quality of love the Father has
given (shown, bestowed) on us, that we should be named and counted the children of God! Given his situation, this is
an incredibly crazy statement...it doesn't make sense, and yet, he knows something beyond what the religion of his day
offered. He was, after all, exiled for embracing this thing called the gospel...the good news! I love how John ends that
sentence, though...as if to say, it doesn't look like it, it doesn't always feel like it, but...(children of God) WE ARE! This is
what we ARE apart from our behavior, circumstances or situations.
There is so much more there in those first chapters of Genesis that just chip away at the way most of us view God, our
self, others, life and love, but I'll never update this site if I keep writing, so I'll just leave it there with the hope that it
offers encouragement along with possibly a few things to think about.