Ain't God Great?

Today, I would like to take license to deviate from my scripture schedule and bring up another scripture passage that is very close to my heart. I was blessed to be able to participate in a 16 week semester study while in seminary on the first eleven chapters of the book of Genesis and what is most attractive to me is within the very first verse of the book where it says "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth" (Genesis 1:1).

There are so many things to glean from this one verse of scripture that naturally, I will not have the opportunity to reach them all, but there are some interesting facts about "In the beginning..." that Christians everywhere should be able to defend. In the beginning or at the start or from the moment creation began to be made is an important issue because it gives us a "start up" time. Without "In the beginning," who would ever be able to determine any of God's timing, and also as important is that this is "God's timing" and not ours which means that even though we use a 24 hour clock to calculate a day's work, does not mean that we should put God in that box.

And then the author says "...created the heavens and earth." In the Hebrew language the word created is "bara" which is significant because it literally means "creating something out of nothing." And of course, this is the biggest issue that Christianity has today with the Theory of Evolution which is insistent on the fact that we "Evolved" into what we are today from something besides "bara" (nothing). Darwin based his entire theory on "happening by chance" which would be somewhat shaky to me in today's world. Darwin's theory goes somewhat like this: "Fortuitous concurrences of accidental circumstances" In fact, if his theory were correct, it would be interesting each time we opened a can of peaches today to see what we would find.

Also as important is the word "God" as it is used here in the Hebrew language. It is the word "Elohim" which means "A God of power". This is important to note because after all of the creation story is complete and beginning in chapter 2:4, God is referred to as "Jehovah Elohim" which means "A God of power and perfection - A finishing God." Interesting, huh?

Well, why did I bring this up? What does it have to do with your salvation or your walk with God? How does it make your relationship with God better? Well, as I said earlier, it is a favorite passage of mine and its importance in my life is that because my faith IN God allows me to see this as the "Gospel Truth" of God's Word (as opposed to other theories IE: Evolution), the news we are beginning to receive about the possible return of my cancer and the possibility of another very serious "round" of chemotherapy, I can stand tall in my understanding in the Creator of the universe and His Great Ability to take care of me "according to His will".

Yes, the "tumor markers" have been increasing each month and today I go for a "stat" PET CT Scan to see just exactly where it is at. And because I trust by faith, the Word I just explained to you, I don't have to be worried about opening this "can of peaches" because I know that whatever is in the can, God CAN, and will take care of for me.

Someday you can sit and read the 38th and 39th chapters of the book of Job to see the masterful way that God shows Job who the Creator is.

One more point and I'm through. In verse 3 God said "Let there be light; and there was light." The fascinating part of that verse that a lot of you probably don't realize is that this still being the first day of creation, there was no Sun or Moon created yet. So, I believe that the God who can light up the world with His Word alone, can take very good care my little problem.

Ain't God Great

Dave