God created the heavens and the earth

30 November 

Scripture Reading

Read Genesis 1:1-5 and reflect on the passage.

“In the beginning, God created”—from nothing. Amazing! And let’s not miss the miracle of the first day. God spoke: “Light!” and light appeared. Awesome! By a series of truly stunning decrees, He called into being the ordered world. Was He preparing the earth for man’s arrival—His last and best miracle of creation? Above and beyond our imagination!

Then the unthinkable happened—man (we) forgot the Above-and-Beyond God; we chose darkness over His Amazing Light. As we wandered in the dark, hoping for His Light to return, He had already made plans to reconcile us to the Light again! We await this Light. Come Light Divine!

In this Advent time, let’s not miss the miracle of the first Christmas. God spoke through the angel, “I bring you good news…today there has been born for you a Savior” (Luke 2:10-11). Amazing! God spoke through John, “The true light…was coming into the world,” affirming Jesus as that Light (John 1:9). Awesome! Was He preparing man for His arrival as the God-Man to bring us back to Himself? Above and beyond our deserving! Come, Lord Jesus, Light Divine!

Questions

1. What to you is the most amazing thing about creation or about the God of creation?

2. Are you living in anticipation of Jesus coming again? Why or why not?

Prayer

We thank You, Creator God, for showing us that You are above-and-beyond anything we can imagine or deserve. Keep us in Your Light. Amen.

—Mary Lou Garves

If You Build It

Field of Dreams is an imaginative film about Ray Kinsella, an Iowa farmer who becomes inspired to plow under part of his crop and build a baseball field in its place. At points along the way, he hears these words from the great beyond: “If you build it, they will come.” So in the middle of nowhere, he creates a beautiful ball field—well groomed, handsomely striped, and brilliantly lit. It is, in a sense, something arising out of nothing.

The world we live in is the ultimate something-from-nothing occurrence. “In the beginning, God created,”¹ starts the book of Genesis and the Bible that contains it. Only the unseen God was present, and from Him proceeded everything we do see . . . and hear and smell and taste and feel. How could matter possibly emerge from non-matter? We don’t know. But it did.

We often muse over the “how” of creation, but what about the “why”? Why such stunning beauty, intricate complexity, and orderly precision? The Bible answers that it had everything to do with something called, “glory”—God’s glory. He made everything not to establish His greatness, but to display it in ways that delight. We behold His beauty in vistas too grand to describe, and we hear His song in waves rhythmically lapping upon the sands. His touch is felt in breezes that embrace us, and His assuring power peals across thundering skies.

Yet God is most intimately displayed in those who set aside their own convenience to tend to someone else’s need, “everyone who is called by my name, whom I created for my glory, whom I formed and made.”² Even the hardest of hearts are moved at selfless acts of kindness, even if only for a moment.

As the movie ends, a steady stream of headlights converge upon the “field of dreams,” bringing people from wherever they are to experience it. So also, God has built everything to reflect His glory, that we would see Him as He is and come to Him.

Lord God, we see you in the splendor that surrounds us and in your Spirit who indwells us. Grace me not only to see your glory, but to display it, as well, that this life would be pleasing to you and a blessing to others. Amen.

¹ Genesis 1:1, 2
² Isaiah 43:6b, 7

[See today’s Scripture in Genesis 1:1-5.]

Essentially Good

God called the dry ground “land,” and the gathered waters he called “seas.” And God saw that it was good. Genesis 1:10

The longer I walk with God and the more I get to know Him, the more I savor His goodness. Amid a country in conflict and a culture in chaos, goodness lives as an oasis, a welcome place of soul-calming breezes and thirst-quenching waters.

Though goodness can be hard to define, its presence around us is unmistakable. Where people stand up for the picked on and the beaten down, goodness is found there. When acts of kindness give birth to hope and healing, we look up and see goodness. Whenever purity is upheld and preserved—and evil is called out for what it is—goodness glows. When people share in their love for God and care for the needs of others, goodness flows. And in the midst of faithfulness and dependability stands goodness.

The Psalmist wrote of God, “You are good, and what you do is good . . . “ (Psalm 119:68). Personally, I think people know deep down inside that goodness flows out from God who is good by nature—that it knows no other fountainhead. So it is that when our light shines before others and they see our good deeds, they glorify our Father in heaven.¹

With this in mind, let us heed Paul’s exhortation: “Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up. Therefore, as we have opportunity, let us do good to all people . . . “ (Galatians 6:9, 10).

¹ Matthew 5:16 (NIV)

[Read about God's goodness in the first three days of the creation story in Genesis 1:1-10.]