Things you can learn from Genesis part 3

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Genesis 2

How crazy is it that God started making stuff and that He created all these things and then He created man. There are some really wild things inside the second chapter of Genesis. One of those aha moments happens in verses 5 and 6. In these two very cool verses we learn that God did not use rain to water the earth. This is critical knowledge when we get to Noah and that whole mess. Here we learn that God had a watering system that was a mist that arose from the ground. Just super cool evidence that God made science without us getting overly worked up about the whole science vs creation thing. Let’s just be clear that God understood the nuances of evaporation and humidification. He was super into hydroponics. It’s pretty clear that He knew how to grow a thing or two.

That’s an interesting side note but nothing so shocking as the description of how He made Adam. Man was formed from dust and then God breathes life into the dust and then wait for it because this is more shocking than fish suddenly walking and alien DNA and monkeys starting to act all people like. The truth is so much more shocking and cool. The dirt stands up and starts being a person. That just freaks me out, makes me think crazy thoughts, makes me laugh and shout in joy. God does crazy stuff and that is how I know He is real. He breathes on dirt and it stands up and starts talking and walking and doing stuff. (Kinda ironic like that the dirt is getting ready to sin in the next chapter)

Crazy thing next: God brings all the stuff He made and shows all the stuff to Adam, the dirt guy. He brings the stuff, all the coolest first things that ever were. These are things that were not at one moment and then were. And He takes the cool stuff over to the dirt guy and actually lets the dirt guy name everything. What are you doing God? The dirt guy gets to name everything that you made. And that is intense because right there we know the absolute truth about our God. He does every single thing. He for real does it all and then lets the dirt guy give names as if the dirt guy had something to do with the creating of stuff.

This God actually looks at Adam, looks at us and says look at all our cool stuff. He is so crazy like that. He not only shares His toys he actually makes them our toys. He actually treats us as if we were involved in the whole toy making process. God says look at what we have done. And He just never stops saying it. “Look at what we did, dirt guy.” All the while knowing that dirt guy is about to get way off track in just one more chapter. I can just picture Him with His arm around the dirt guy. Just smiling as Adam is naming stuff. Just smiling knowing what happens next. God all outside of time, living in the moment, knowing He has a plan for the next moment where the dirt guy acts like a dirt guy. That’s to be expected from a dirt guy, even if God breathed on Him and let Him name all the stuff. Dirt just does what dirt does.

Things you can learn from Genesis Part 2

Genesis 1:26-30

Here’s the thing about creation. It is an absolutely ridiculous idea. God was and is without lack. In Him there is no thing that He does not have, does not experience. Within the realm of His existence He is fully filled with the relationship of Father, Son and Spirit. He is at all times worshiped by the seraphim and the elders. He is at all times stunning and radiant. He at all times sits on a throne that is surrounded by things of amazement. In Revelation 4 we are told:

And He who sat there had the appearance of jasper and carnelian, and around the throne was a rainbow that had the appearance of an emerald. ⁴ Around the throne were twenty-four thrones, and seated on the thrones were twenty-four elders, clothed in white garments, with golden crowns on their heads. ⁵ From the throne came flashes of lightning, and rumblings and peals of thunder, and before the throne were burning seven torches of fire, which are the seven spirits of God, ⁶ and before the throne there was as it were a sea of glass, like crystal.

  

And around the throne, on each side of the throne, are four living creatures, full of eyes in front and behind: ⁷ the first living creature like a lion, the second living creature like an ox, the third living creature with the face of a man, and the fourth living creature like an eagle in flight. ⁸ And the four living creatures, each of them with six wings, are full of eyes all around and within, and day and night they never cease to say,

“Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord God Almighty,
    who was and is and is to come!”

⁹ And whenever the living creatures give glory and honor and thanks to him who is seated on the throne, who lives forever and ever, ¹⁰ the twenty-four elders fall down before him who is seated on the throne and worship him who lives forever and ever. They cast their crowns before the throne, saying,

¹¹ “Worthy are you, our Lord and God,
    to receive glory and honor and power,
for you created all things,
    and by your will they existed and were created.”

To say the least, this is a pretty cool place with plenty of things going on. So to be sure God was doing just fine without birds and trees and creepy things and stuff. So He certainly didn’t need the headache of man. And yet in Him there was such great love, such desire to birth us, all the while knowing the end of the story. Stunning thing A: God made all things according to their kinds. This is critical. All things were created to replicate the kind of thing they would be. So for instance God makes a maple tree and that tree will make seeds to make more maple trees. The maple tree is in and of itself unique. It is a kind of new thing. But there is a critical shift as God readies himself to make man. Stunning thing B: As God is making all the background stuff God is just calling things into existence but He gets to man and says, “Let us make man in our image.” Ok that is stunning thing C as well. Because God readies the other two for this one. He knows He is about to embark on what will be heartache, and rejection and the death of His son and He tells themselves, “Get ready. Here we go.” This is a moment of inhale-don’t breath-look around-silence and then it is started. Stunning thing C is simple and complex and impossible to even comprehend because everything else was made of a new kind, something from nothing. But God looks about and says let’s make man from our image, from our kind. We are His seed, the image of the mighty one, the ancient of days. We are not a new kind. We are made to be like Him. We will make more people just like maple seeds will make more maple trees. We are seeds that were intended to make more image of God people. There is an obvious sidetrack and a squiggly line and a few zig-zags thrown in. But it is clear than when Jesus shows up for project redeem the earth and when He says,  “follow me and I will make you become fishers of men.” He knew exactly what He was talking about because He was there on that day when they all got together and made man in their image. He came to the earth and started creation anew. He intended that we would be reproducers of the image of God and now He came to walk the planet to show us how to do what was always intended.  Make more people in His image. It’s all pretty obvious, sort of.

Things you can learn from Genesis Part 1

Genesis 1:1-2

Who is this God that from all the nothingness of an infinite space made something? He created from nothing all things and He declared them to be good because He is good and from Him comes all that is good. And He lacked nothing but in Him was a desire for something tangibly else from all things He already had. And so we are told in Genesis 1:1-2, “ In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. ² The earth was without form and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters.” And this is the God that already was and there was darkness over the face of the deep. And in an instant God is a darkness exterminator.

Things become clear. God, seated wherever He is sitting, decides that He will stop doing whatever He was up to before He decided to start making stuff and then He sees that everything is darkness. The Word is with Him and the Holy Spirit hovers and in an instant they commence the project, they begin the process that has been the plan all along. This is the removal of darkness plan that will not fail because “in Him there is no darkness” and in His light the darkness cannot survive. Even in that first instant of creation “God saw that the light was good. And God separated the light from the darkness.” Can you just see the impact of the light when God releases it upon the dark?

Oh this God who sees darkness and subdues it, makes it His own. He sees darkness and He is so moved that He makes light. And so it is that in the very beginning God was in the business of making darkness into light. This is who He is. He is the ender of darkness. In John 1 we are told,  “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. ² He was in the beginning with God. ³ All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made. ⁴ In him was life, and the life was the light of men. ⁵ The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.” The Hebrew for the word we translate as overcome could actually be better stated as comprehend. We can really read this that the darkness cannot comprehend the light in any meaningful way. Darkness is so defeated and disoriented by the light that it cannot possibly come up with a plan for overcoming it. This is how amazing God’s light is. He looks down on the void that is dark and He makes light and to this day the dark cannot find a way to overcome this new reality is faces. To this day the dark flees the light, is utterly destroyed by it. There will be a day when there is no darkness. Oh that that day would come soon.