Implications of being created rather than evolved . . .

Genesis 1; Matthew 1; Ezra 1; Acts 1

I start a new year with a devotional guide describe in the sidebar. Carson is a respected theologian with thoughts that are deep and will be enlightening as well as challenging. His entry for today reveals a keen observant mind. It also exalts God.

From reading four passages about new beginnings, I’m settled on the glory of creation in Genesis 1 where the created order points to the glory of its Maker. Later, David writes this:

The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims his handiwork. (Psalm 19:1)

How can anyone miss it? Aside from their insistence that these glories happened by time and chance, several television channels feature nature programs that fill me with awe, the same as when I can get out where I can see them in person. I’m also in awe (a different kind) that many people cannot see that such beauty and intricacy necessitate a designer. For me, all of creation declares the wonder of the Creator.

“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.” (Revelation 4:11)

As Carson says, this points to His transcendence. He is above all things yet in sinful blindness many people assume that God is a figment of human imagination — as if we created Him.

The God who made the world and everything in it, being Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in temples made by man, nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mankind life and breath and everything. And he made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their dwelling place . . .  (Acts 17:24–26)

Not only that, along with all of humanity, I am, created in His image. I’d be a fool to think God can be pictured by any image I or anyone else could create.

Being then God’s offspring, we ought not to think that the divine being is like gold or silver or stone, an image formed by the art and imagination of man. (Acts 17:29)

And then there is Jesus. Genesis 1 repeatedly says, “And God said . . .” in the act of creating the world. John wrote:

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, and without him was not anything made that was made. (John 1:1–3)

God spoke and that Word was Jesus who willingly became a babe in a manger who grew to manhood and died for my sin. He is God in human flesh, sent to the people who knew the most about God, yet they rejected Him, but not all. Some believed and were restored to His family by a new birth . . .

He was in the world, and the world was made through him, yet the world did not know him. He came to his own, and his own people did not receive him. But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God, who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God. And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth. (John 1:10–14)

As a person made in the image of God, given the right to be His child and one given a glimpse of His glory, I have a responsibility to show forth that image, to reflect the Maker in whose image I am made. If I ever thought I had no calling, this makes it clear; I am called to reflect of the wonder of God. Something I know I cannot do apart from being filled with His Spirit and totally yielded to His will.

This is easy to say in the comfort of home, but not so easy to follow through, even here or when out of my comfort zone. I want the Lord to keep me shining, paying attention, listening, obedient. May His perfect will be done.