Creation

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Genesis 1:1-2     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.

Jeremiah 32:17     Ah, Sovereign  Lord, You have made the heavens and the earth by Your great power and outstretched arm.  Nothing is too heard for You.

Hebrews 3:4     For every house is built by someone, but God is the builder of everything.

Romans 1:20     For since the creation of the world God’s invisible  qualities–his eternal power and divine nature–have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse.

 

I can’t even imagine the world as dark and formless, but that is what God’s Word says it was before He created the earth, heaven and the world, and its blessings as it is now.   His Word describes what this truth is.  Since my reality has always been able to see, hear, and learn the differences of just this present world, I have a hard time imagining the almost nothingness, the dark and formlessness and all that He created by speaking it into being.  (Well, minus all sorts of inventions, cities, and so on!)

It is so awesome God created the entire world and everything in it.  He formed the waters and land, mountains, then day and night, stars, moon and sun.  I cannot even imagine since I have always had and experienced the blessings of all this.  Being blessed with good eyesight, I can see and identify many different animals; my ears can identify many different bird songs; I can tell which of the neighborhood dogs are barking and so forth.   There is so much beauty with the world He created. 

Identifying stars in the sky is not one of my strengths, but with the help of an App, I can spot them and see what I am looking at.  The few planets we can see are easier for me to identify, but I am thankful technology has advanced enough I can pull out an App that can show me.  It is so fortunate to be alive in this day and age when there is so much available for education via an App on a cell phone.   Technology has advanced so rapidly in the past twenty years, enabling us to explore areas of the world we may never see or visit. 

There are animals we are now able to watch in their own habitat because talented and patient photographers spend hours getting footage which can be made into an educational bit for television, or cell phone or computer.   The world feels smaller than when I learned of my grandparents first coming to this country; when I learned of my parents being separated by many countries while my father served as a military man in Germany and my mother remained here.  Nothing but letters which took several days to over a week to arrive.  My grandparents arrived in the states in the early 1920’s and at that time wondered if they would ever see their homeland again.  Yet now, we can easily travel from country to country with the right identifying paperwork.   Yet, now the world seems smaller now because so much is easier and quickly accessed.  We are able to travel fairly easily, see different lands and cultures, and be exposed to things less than a century ago, were difficult to travel and experience.

Technology  has advanced and we are blessed with opportunities to see so much of this gorgeous creation our Lord created from nothing. 

He made man to be in His image and gave him reasoning and the ability to make choices.  We don’t always make wise decisions with our free choice.  Eve was easily led to make a bad wrong choice through her selfish desire, and the human race has continued to let their own whims and wants rule their decisions for the most part.  That is sin.  And no one has been lived, except Jesus Christ, the Son of God, sinless. 

God could tolerate the sins and violence no longer, so had Noah construct an Ark and bring aboard two of every kind of animal as well his three sons, daughters-in-law and his wife.  After the flood, they were going to populate the world again.

And did, but the results were the same.  We are a selfish, self-centered, self-gratifying animal, and this is the crux of our sinning.  Because we have free choice we make choices to please ourselves.  And this is sin.  No other animal commits sin.   That is left to the animal He created in His own image, and the one He opted to give the privilege of being in command of all on the earth, and to have free choice.  But having the ability to choose, leads us selfish creatures to sin.   We see something, anything we want, and scheme to have it: we want what we want when we want it.  Our emotions are complex and lead us to rash behaviors at times. 

Jealousy, anger, greed, lust, and envy and so forth lead us to commit sinful, willful behaviors.  Sin means we are separated from God.  He created man to be in His image, and to have a relationship.  Sinning keeps us separated from Him.   Through all of time since Eve first convinced Adam to join her in disobeying God, this is what mankind has done.   We choose our sinful, selfish, self appeasing choices most of the time than God’s commands. 

Oftentimes, we will tell ourselves we are not so bad–even doing a mental comparison with someone else’s behavior–as though that excuses our own.   It does not.  Many are pretty adept at reassuring themselves they are ‘good people’ so they don’t consider themselves sinners and do not want to listen to the actual Words of God.

I know several people who have this apparently closed viewpoint, and my heart aches for them.  But God gave man free choice, reasoning, learning and knowledge, and ability to ferret out His words for themselves and to learn who He is, what He has created and given us, blessed us with, and what He expects.  Each has the ability to learn that God sent His only Son to be the final, redeeming blood sacrifice for all.  We have only to believe with our heart and claim that Jesus is the Son of God, the Savior and He gave His life so we could be freed of sin.  What a concept!  Who would do such a wonderful thing?  

Jesus, my Lord and Savior died for all who believe in Him and claim Him as the Savior of their life.  I am so thankful Jesus holds me and ‘mybellaviews’ in His palms.