Welcome to our journey together through the book of Genesis. It is our desire that we all spend time with God and this is designed to be a tool you can use to see how God wants to help you look into God’s Word for teaching, guidance, and action. The great thing is that we hope to find time to spend with God and then see how that impacts all of us as we are reading the same things and hopefully it will allow us to discussion and grow together.
Now why Genesis? As we have been desiring to see God speak to us through our theme Seeking Wholeness – Being Good News to the Broken, I am going to quote our Doulos teaching ministry leader – “I am reminded of how we were whole as a race (of people) at the dawn of Creation, yet became broken at the Fall. Genesis is a story about God’s people seeking wholeness by finding their identity in God and how they were called to be different from the nations around them. Likewise, their struggles and triumphs can be good warnings and reminders for us regarding the challenges we face in an ungodly world. And although the Israelites never see Jesus bring full restoration to our relationship with God, I believe that a study into the Old Testament will be both challenging and fulfilling. It will hopefully help the youth to understand that there are many things in this world that will stand between us and a healthy relationship with God, but as God’s chosen people, as His Church, we are called to be different and to truly be Good News to all the people who may or may not have been exposed to the Gospel yet.”
When you read God’s WORD, I want to challenge you especially as we are doing Genesis. Don’t read it with the thought, I know this story. I heard it so many times during Sunday School. Please read it as if it is your first time reading it (and if it is, please don’t worry about that either, we are excited for you to see more of God through it). So I am going to encourage you read it, then try reading it again out loud.
READ GENESIS 1:1- 2:3
As you read it, I hope you pay attention to the fact that God just spoke, and it came to be. God is the Creator and we must see the power in that. As God created the heavens and the earth, God declares them to be “good”. I am not asking you to memorize what was created on which day and or to focus on the meaning of what does a “day” mean, but focus on the fact that our mighty God created this world and it was “good”.
So notice the main repetition of the word “God” with the word “made” or “created”. “God” appears 35 times in the first 34 verses. The Scripture shows that He is the main focus of all. Nothing is made or created without Him.
There is an extremely vital lesson we learn from the design of the universe. If the universe was made up of random forces as we see commonly taught in our schools in Science class, then how we live is up to us. We can create our own “purpose” in life, and devise our own standards of “right” and “wrong”. But most that live with this viewpoint usually do not consistently live with these thoughts. It becomes quite clear in our lives that there is absolute “right” and “wrong”. Where does that idea come from? It comes from God who shows us that He is Absolute Truth and sets the standard of “right” and “wrong” in this world. Here is our challenge though, do we know God and are close to him that we have the right view of Him as being mighty and powerful and bigger than anything we can fathom? Also, am I searching for Him to teach me to live by His standards of what is “right” and “wrong”? What ways do I want to dedicate myself in doing those things (doing these devotions is a great start, by the way)? Take some time to pray about these things.
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