As I have walked now with the Lord for 15 years there has been a recurring experience, where I think I comprehend just who God is then He completely throws me way off. Why would I think, why should any of us think, He should interact with us any other way?
The scriptures show us from the very first chapter, from the very first sentence of the Bible, that God is dynamic; He is repeatedly performing deeds that Wow his Beloved people, that continually and ironically prove his Consistent and ever-faithful Character!
There is One identity descriptor of God I have recently discovered that is completely overlooked….God as Creator. We tend to see God as Creator within the limits of the one “creation account”. Now, if you want to look at and use scripture in way that forces you to construct lists and make sterile conclusive statements about God, then, in my humble opinion, God’s nature as creator does exist within the pages of Genesis 1-2. But what fun is that? Honestly? That doesn’t do justice to what God wants to reveal to you!
I’m sure there is more to what I am about to say, however, I beginning to see the creation account as a home-base, a premise, a thesis, a foundation for all the different ways God manifests his Nature. It is the main and primary piece to God’s character development in this story of hope and life.
This book is not a manual, it is a poetic, romantic and daring epic of truth that is to speak and shape our physical and spiritual reality!
The premise begins- Genesis 1:1-3
1. In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.
2. 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.
3. And God said, "Let there be light," and there was light.
4. God saw that the light was good, and he separated the light from the darkness.
Several verses later, God creates Adam’, “man” in Hebrew. This is the only instance of God’s creations throughout the six-day period, that God made something in His own Image.
We, as readers of this story, can see immediately that the activity between man and God is so different and so special compared to any other.
Three times the scripture says in Genesis 1:27, God “created.” This is extremely significant in that three signifies in the Hebrew culture, divine. There is a divine branding, spiritual genetic DNA that no man or woman can detach themselves from.
It is the “Ruach,” God breathing into us that has made Him unable to stop loving and turning away his attention from us.
It is our divine mark that has kept God so faithful in giving us ridiculous amounts of chances over to return to His intended relationship with us throughout all history.
Humankind has tried to sever his and her ties to their Creator by denying both who they really are and who God really is.
In the Garden of Eden, when God declared all was “good”, and functioned as planned, man and woman took a turn to feast their desires on themselves, which eventually, lead into generations of broken relationships, hard-ache, competition amongst peers and defilement of love. Mankind was found in wanting, walking and scraping for dear life in this new dark abyss waiting for a new created order to occur.
Since then, time and time again God has and still is somehow bringing us back to the first story, to the creation scene. He is graciously confronting us with His nature as Creator. We cannot escape him.
Isaiah 40:28 NAS
Do you not know? Have you not heard? The Everlasting God, the LORD, the Creator of the ends of the earth does not become weary or tired. His understanding is inscrutable.
Let’s think about several ways God has revealed to us this continual interplay between his greatest creation and his faithfulness to his nature as Creator:
Before the Garden- before man and woman there was physical darkness.
Man and Woman and all creation lived in relationship with God. There was light. God’s order was in place.
Humankind fell. Relationship to God was broken and now enters murder.
God moves to restore his creation, through the cleansing of bringing on a flood and using a righteous man named Noah to do so. Order is re-established.
Disorder reigns as man builds a temple in attempts to worship himself.
God calls Abraham and makes a spectacular promise to him to lead all generations into a covenantal love, an agreement to make sure his people will one day be rejoined with Him. “And in you all the families of the earth will be blessed." The Lord said.
Then God’s people are enslaved. God uses a man who feels he has nothing to offer and compared to the sight of man, he was right. God uses Moses to lead the people out of the land of despair into the land of abundance and hope.
The people of God have forgotten how their Creator has saved them, how He has loved them, But God can’t seem to give up.
The word used to describe his Love is constant, it is everlasting, it is forever faithful and it doesn’t hinge on any conditions. He will love until he sees his creation brought back to where all is restored. God is not only Savior, He is Lover.
Nehemiah 9:17 NIV
They refused to listen and failed to remember the miracles you performed among them. They became stiff-necked and in their rebellion appointed a leader in order to return to their slavery. But you are a forgiving God, gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and abounding in love. Therefore you did not desert them.
Kings fell. The people God called out and saved were worshipping creatures as opposed to their Creator and Savior.
400 Years later, God speaks through a man named John the Baptist, another misunderstood individual of society. He said, in so many words, Change your way of thinking for something new is coming! “Repent for the Kingdom is at hand.”
Jesus Christ, God in the Flesh, who was there in the beginning, who grieved and loved His people, came and walked, talked, healed and ushered in the long lost dominion and Kingdom of God.
Taking on the disorder and the muck of the world, Jesus became the final Word and miraculous Deed that would bring all creation back to the place where it once left.
Through the darkness of Jesus’ death and the light of his resurrection, God created a new order of people who exist and participate in God’s redemptive Creative scheme to see all creation restored.
Everyday, our lives as Christians we are, if we know it or not, are characters in God’s Creation account.
Scripture show us that we, like the first days of creation, have been saved from the darkness and have been welcomed and called into the Light.
We find ourselves alive and engaging in the world around us.
And through this dramatic act God has done is continuing to do for us, we too are to do the same. For the Bible says….
1 John 4:11 NIV
Since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.
This imperative instruction is rooted in God’s Great and inspiring nature:
Romans 8:39 NIV
Neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
We can never separate ourselves. We can never not be known by the God who created us, saved us and loves us.
