CREATION 2

f someone offered you a house with no foundation would you take it? I suppose if you lived somewhere where no storms or catastrophes occurred that would be okay. But, since no place on earth is trouble-proof, it is exceedingly wise to build upon a strong foundation. Now imagine sharing that Jesus is the Savior with someone who has never heard the gospel. Jesus’ mission prophesied in Isaiah 42 was to fulfill God’s promise to rescue people, to be a light to open blind eyes. Jesus told His disciples in Mark 16:15 that the whole creation should hear the good news about Him. But too often this news only concerns Jesus coming to earth, living a sinless life and dying on the cross to save us. Left out is the incredible part of why He came in the first place. If we don’t understand the whole reason for Jesus coming we have a foundationless house! We need to take people back to the beginning . . .

Meditation

Genesis 1:1,27—In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth . . . So God created man in His own image; He created him in the image of God; He created them male and female. (Holman CSB)

God made the earth to be inhabited (Isaiah 45:18) but creation is more than an incredible formation chronicle. It is our love story! Yes, God made us in His image to have as friends for an eternal partnership. King David wrote in Psalm 139:13, “For it was You who created my inward parts; You knit me together in my mother’s womb.” God lovingly fashioned us—this is why we possess unique DNA, fingerprints, voices, eyes and souls. We are not products of chance we are people of choice! As Isaiah reveals, we are created for God’s glory (Isa.43:7)! Amos teaches us that God even reveals His thoughts to us (4:13). And as the Apostle Paul helps the Ephesians understand (2:10), we were created with a purpose! “For we are His creation—created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared ahead of time so that we should walk in them.”

The gospel begins in Genesis not in Matthew! Everything created by God is good (1 Timothy 4:4). Creation explains why we are here and establishes our worth. But the Bible’s first book also reveals the shocking account of what went wrong. Adam and Eve disobeyed God and by so doing transmitted evil to every human descendant. Sin deems us unworthy. Jesus came because God created us for good not evil, to restore our worth! As we learn in Colossians 1:15,16, Jesus was engaged with us from our inception. By Him we exist! His love for us is revealed by the sacrifice He made to untaint and justify us before God (the Encarta World English Dictionary defines justify as “to free somebody from sinfulness through faith in Jesus Christ or by the grace of Jesus Christ”).

The why of our salvation is answered in the beginning. Understanding creation is paramount as Paul demonstrated standing in the middle of the Areopagus before the Athenians:

From one man He has made every nation of men to live all over the earth and has determined their appointed times and the boundaries of where they live, so that they might seek God, and perhaps they might reach out and find Him, though he is not far from each one of us. For in Him we live and move and exist, as even some of your own poets have said, “For we are also His offspring.” (Acts 17:26-28)

We are better disciples when we grasp the significance of our value before the Creator. You see it was in the very beginning that God gave us something to think about . . . in reveration!

Inspiration

We have no business to be ignorant about the way God created the world, or to be unable to discern “the arm of the Lord” behind things.—Oswald Chambers in Biblical Psychology