Monday, March 5, 2012

Sustenance

Here's the PROMISED post from yesterday! Ha get it... promised post cause it's a series on promises. Yeah, ok, moving on.
Update: I've decided NOT to do the Old and New Testaments in tandem because when I did that I got off to a great start and completely confused both promises I found in these chapters. And not much of this makes a whole lot of logical, chronological sense anyway so I thought I'd try to minimize my losses and just do one chapter a day. 


So here we go. Genesis 1.


Now I know you've probably got a billion (ok, a million) expectations about God's promises in Genesis 1, since everyone knows that Genesis 1 is the creation story and everyone's mostest favoritest line in this chapter is "And God saw that it was good." Well, I'm here to live up to ALL your expectations about the predictability of this post!


As I said before, we see the line "it is good" or "it was good" or "it is very good" a lot in this chapter. There aren't really clear-cut "promises" so to speak, like a rainbow or anything. (I can't wait until I get to that chapter. Blogging on THAT promise is going to be EASYYY.) 
We see God primarily as the Creator in this chapter, but we also see Him as the Maintainer: have you noticed that God created plants before He created the Sun for photosynthesis or even Bees for pollination? What's keeping those plants alive then? 


Imagine yourself creating something, like a watercolor painting, or (if you're like me) a little stick figure. You aren't very quick to destroy it just after you've created it, are you? Of course you're not. You drew that little stick figure, and he even kind of looks like you, and you named him Twiggy, and then you gave him a speech bubble, and he said "hi" to you and your heart melted like butter because your cute little Twiggy speaks in the most adorable font. Yeah? Well, God created us in His own image. He blessed the first two humans (verse 28) and gave them the entire earth to take care of and use. And we talk to Him even as He speaks to us. 


People often wonder why God didn't just start over and completely destroy the entire human race because of our shortcomings and sinful wretchedness and constant falling short of His glory. But I believe in this chapter, God through his blessing to Adam and Eve in a way promised to continue the good work He began in us to completion. Why? Because it's never been about us. It's about God creating people in His own image and adopting them through our Savior Jesus Christ as His own children!  Yeah, we sin, and we're bad, and you could go on for several millenia about how often we exaggerate, but true, eternal life--that adoption as children of God--isn't even about not sinning. 


"And this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent." - John 17:3. Our ultimate purpose in life is to know God the Father and Jesus Christ, whom he sent, and become absolutely nothing to let God be all. Our place in life is that of true dependency upon the Lord, and He will sustain us just as He sustained those plants He created before photosynthesis and pollination. And that, my friends, is a promise.

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