In The Beginning

Our most important questions are answered in the Bible.

Genesis 1:1 In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.

Isaiah 45:18 For the LORD is God, and He created the heavens and earth and put everything in place. He made the world to be lived in, not to be a place of empty chaos. "I am the LORD," He says, "and there is no other.

Hebrews 11:3 By faith we understand that the entire universe was formed at God's command, that what we now see did not come from anything that can be seen.

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There is a lot of fascination these days with the beginning of the family tree, there is a whole new industry that caters to the desire to know more about where you came from, and for a price you can learn about your roots.

The fascination with the beginning of things goes even further back in time. The oldest ancient civilizations had crazy theories about the start of human history. There where all kinds of stories about multiple gods, most of the theories that the ancient cultures had involved chaos, in fact most of their gods spent their time fighting each other.

Some people say that there isn’t any way that they can believe the Genesis account, there isn’t enough scientific evidence to satisfy them. Imagine how overwhelming it would be for the original readers of this book if it gave enough scientific information to satisfy modern man.

Elementary school students can understand more about science than they could back then but there is still so much that we cannot comprehend about God and how he can make something from nothing.

I am thankful that the Bible gives us information that is so much more essential for us to understand, the facts about creation are not as essential as the real message and purpose of God's word.

The Most Important Message Of The Bible

There is a higher power

There is a God that created everything around us without any raw material, without God the raw material wouldn't exist and they would never be able to come together to make such an organized, complex and intelligent end product.

Our existence would be so miserable if mankind were the highest level of intelligence and if everything was just an accident without any purpose. The big bang cannot answer many questions such as:

• Where did the emotions come from? 
• How did humans and the animal kingdom get instincts? 
• How did the laws of physics come about? 
• How could an opposite sex evolve in time for the original creature to reproduce before it died?

The higher power isn't impersonal

If the Bible stopped at just informing us about God and his ability to create then we would be stuck in a very delicate situation. We would have every reason to fear this all powerful force that made all things but God didn't create us and walk away and stay at a distance from us.

Thankfully he chose to relate to us even though he didn't need to have a relationship with us because he doesn't have any unmet needs.

The higher power's most important creation

God didn't make us the same as the rest of creation, if he had then Satan wouldn't have any reason to hate us so much, no other part of creation disgust him the way that mankind does.

Man is dear to God because he is like Him. Vast and glorious as it is, the sun cannot think God’s thoughts; can fulfil but cannot intelligently sympathise with God’s purpose. Man, alone among God’s works, can enter into and approve of God’s purpose in the world and can intelligently fulfill it.

-Expositor's Bible Commentary

Rather than speaking us into existence, God's personal touch was used as he made us from the dust and breathed life into us. Since we were born as a direct result of God's creative activity the Bible says that Adam is the son of God. This truth makes evolution impossible. God didn't create us as a lower life form and then evolve us into his masterpiece that would rule over the rest of creation.

The higher power we need

God made us special with desires that only he can fulfill, there isn't any other source of peace and joy that can fulfill and satisfy our intellectual desires, our desire for purpose and our desire to worship. The qualities that separate us from the rest of creation would be the cause of great distress if God didn't reveal himself and minister to our needs.

There are four fundamental questions of life. You've asked them, I've asked them, every thinking person asks them. They boil down to this: origin, meaning, morality and destiny. 'How did I come into being? What brings life meaning? How do I know right from wrong? Where am I headed after I die?'

-Ravi Zacharias

None of the other theories of the beginning of the world and our relationship with the creator can give a satisfactory answer to those questions. Only in God's story that he has graciously revealed to us can we find purpose, hope and meaning for this life and for eternity.

Thankfully God didn't just put "in the beginning" in the Bible but he also included what would be at the ending. He revealed to us our position before sin, the effects of our sin, and he told us how we can overcome our sin so that we can spend eternity with him.

Revelation 21:1-3 Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the old heaven and the old earth had disappeared. And the sea was also gone. 2 And I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven like a bride beautifully dressed for her husband. 3 I heard a loud shout from the throne, saying, "Look, God's home is now among His people! He will live with them, and they will be His people. God Himself will be with them.

As glorious as the first creation is, after only seven days of work, it is nothing compared to what we will see after all of the preparations that have been going on for thousands of years.

Are you ready for the end of the story? Do you have an adequate answer for the four fundamental questions of life?

RELATED ARTICLES

What does it mean that humanity is made in the image of God? (gotquestions.org)
Six reasons you should embrace six day creation. (challies.com)

Also Known As God

If he wasn't God on earth then why is the world still talking about him?

John 1:1-5  In the beginning the Word already existed. The Word was with God, and the Word was God.  2  He existed in the beginning with God.  3  God created everything through Him, and nothing was created except through Him.

4  The Word gave life to everything that was created, and His life brought light to everyone. 5  The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness can never extinguish it.

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This is a different genealogy from what you see at the beginning of Matthew and Luke’s gospels, they both show us the human genealogy of Jesus, but John goes way back beyond the humanness of Jesus and he points out the fact that Jesus is God and since He is then He always existed with God.

The four books of the Bible that tell us about Jesus time on earth are written to different audiences and therefore they give us a different perspective on who Jesus is. Matthew shows us Jesus as the Messiah and King of Israel, in Mark there isn’t a genealogy because Christ is presented as a Lowly Servant which wouldn’t have His lineage tracked, in Luke He is the Son of Man rejected by Israel. John the apostle and author of this book wants us to know that Jesus is the Son of God.

Jesus Christ is nothing less that God in a body, He isn’t some mystic, divine being up in heaven somewhere and He isn’t an angel that got a promotion. Jesus was there with God in the beginning when God decided to create, Jesus was there when God gave physical life to this world and now he has come to earth to give us spiritual life.

It is amazing that the world is still talking about this man. Every other great man in history combined doesn’t get the amount of attention that Jesus gets.

"The philosophers Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle, who together are said to have formed the philosophical foundation of Western culture. And yet, despite being in the public eye for only three and a half years, Jesus and His teachings have arguably impacted the world far more than the collective erudition of these three great philosophers whose combined careers totaled more than 150 years."

“Jesus: Why The World Is Still fascinated With Him” -Tim LaHaye

There are people who love Him and swear that He is who He claimed to be and there are others that will bend over backwards to distort the truth. There are plenty of religions in the world today that blaspheme against Jesus saying He was not God, some religions even go as far as to claim that Jesus didn’t even claim to be God.

1 John 2:22-23 And who is a liar? Anyone who says that Jesus is not the Christ. Anyone who denies the Father and the Son is an antichrist. 23 Anyone who denies the Son doesn't have the Father, either. But anyone who acknowledges the Son has the Father also.

There are plenty of religions in the world today that blaspheme against Jesus saying he was not God, they say that he was an angel that was given some deity, some say he is just one of many sons of God, or he is just a good man that God exalted at Jesus baptism. Some religions say that Jesus didn't claim to be God. It is blasphemous to say that he is a prophet of Islam, or claim that he is one of many sons that God created or that he was good enough to be elevated to become a god.

1 John 1:1-2 We proclaim to you the One who existed from the beginning, whom we have heard and seen. We saw Him with our own eyes and touched Him with our own hands. He is the Word of life. 2  This One who is life itself was revealed to us, and we have seen Him. And now we testify and proclaim to you that He is the One who is eternal life. He was with the Father, and then He was revealed to us.

John, who was probably Jesus closest friend, gave us his testimony about Jesus, John wants you to know what he saw and heard and why his life was so radically changed. His experiences with Jesus are very important to him and he wants us to know Jesus the way that he did after spending three years with him. John heard the claims by Jesus, he saw the proof in how He lived, and the things that He did, it all made sense to him that Jesus really was God and our Savior.

Jesus referred to himself as:

✔  the bread of life, (John 6:35-51)
✔  the light of the world, (John 8:12)
✔  the door, (John 10:7-9)
✔  the good shepherd, (John 10:11-14)
✔  the resurrection and the life, (John 11:25)
✔  the way the truth and the life, (John 14:6)
✔  the true vine (John 15:1-5)

Jesus question is for all of us

Luke 9:20  Then He asked them, "But who do you say I am?" Peter replied, "You are the Messiah sent from God!"

Is He a radical thirty year old carpenter that left the family business and got Himself killed for no reason? Did He fake the fulfillment of prophecy? Could a man possibly be born in the right circumstances in order to fulfill hundreds of prophecies in order to trick us? How could His miracles have tricked so many? If He is just a liar then why is the world still so obsessed over one liar?

If Jesus is really the only son of God, fully God revealed to us in a body, then the question that Jesus asked Peter is the most important one that we need to answer as well. “But who do you say I am?”

What if He really is who he claimed to be? If He told us the truth about being God then everything else that He said should be extremely important to us as well. We should be digging into God’s to find out what He wants us to know and what He wants us to do.

A Speck In Creation

Who are we that he cares for us?

Psalms 8:1-9 O Lord, our Lord, your majestic name fills the earth! Your glory is higher than the heavens.

2 You have taught children and infants to tell of your strength, silencing your enemies and all who oppose you.

3 When I look at the night sky and see the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars you set in place, 4 what are mere mortals that you should think about them,
human beings that you should care for them?

5 Yet you made them only a little lower than God and crowned them with glory and honor.

6 You gave them charge of everything you made, putting all things under their authority - 7 the flocks and the herds and all the wild animals, 8 the birds in the sky, the fish in the sea, and everything that swims the ocean currents.

9 O Lord, our Lord, your majestic name fills the earth!

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He made the galaxies with all their splendor and yet he is still mindful of the tiny little speck that is me. You made me just below the heavenly beings and put me in charge of your creation.

Hebrews 2:9-10  What we do see is Jesus, who was given a position “a little lower than the angels”; and because he suffered death for us, he is now “crowned with glory and honor.” Yes, by God’s grace, Jesus tasted death for everyone. 

Jesus became like me so that I can spend eternity with him in heaven, he rose from the dead, I will to, he is in glory and I will be there to. I must not forget how small a part of creation that I am and still remember how important I am to my creator.

Lord, I am so undeserving of your thoughtfulness toward me. Thank you for giving me value far beyond the rest of your awesome creation.

Something From Nothing

Nobody else could have made something so awesome from absolutely nothing.

Genesis 1:31 Then God looked over all he had made, and he saw that it was very good!

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I can be pretty creative and do some handy- man type of work to make something but I cannot begin to make something the way God did.

Every "scientific" explanation for creation is dependent on there being something around that was reshaped into something else but the Bible is very clear that everything was created from nothing, what a concept to try to understand the idea that nothing existed except for what God told to exist.

He didn't have a storeroom of parts that he rummaged through, he didn't have a box full of pieces that came with instructions on how to make a universe, he just spoke it and boom, there it was.

Jeremiah 10:16  But the God of Israel is no idol! He is the Creator of everything that exists,

Acts 17:24  He is the God who made the world and everything in it.

It is difficult to think that God has any needs, but perhaps he does have a need, something that he couldn't get before he created us, it is very likely that the main thing that God was creating when he made us was the ability to have a relationship.

Matthew 11:28  "Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.

I must remember that the Bible is God's love story, from Genesis to Revelations, you have written the greatest love story ever told. He is great at creating something from nothing, he did it with creation and he did it by loving us even when there was nothing coming back to him.

You are an awesome God that spoke everything into existence, thank you for the beauty that you have made, thank you for desiring a relationship with me.