Previous Challenge Entry (Level 3 - Advanced)
Topic: Pen and Paper (07/17/14)
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TITLE: All or Nothing | Previous Challenge Entry
By Stanley McMahon
07/23/14 -
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In fact the whole of the Bible is God revealing Himself to us, telling us who He is and what our relationship to Him is, so He starts out by revealing Himself as our Creator. The rest of the first chapter is about what He did, not how He did it, so while creationists and evolutionists and theologians have a million questions and opinions about the first chapter, the Lord simply states that He created the heavens and the earth. While we may or may not wrestle with the details as believers, we are left with no choice but to accept it as revealed fact. God did create the heavens and the earth. To believe otherwise is spiritual suicide.
If we doubt that He created the heavens and the earth we should also call into question the longest divine monologue in the Old Testament, in the Book of Job, where He summons Job to listen to and reflect on a long series of rhetorical questions on the subject of creation.
We should dismiss the Psalms 8, 19 and 24 for a start. If the heavens do not declare His handiwork and if the stars are not the work of His fingers, then the earth is not His and neither is everything in it.
And in Isaiah 40, there is a strong challenge sent out to an unbelieving people. It is worth reading it in full:
‘To whom will you compare me? Or who is my equal? Says the Holy One. Lift your eyes and look to the heavens: Who created all these? He who brings out the starry host one by one and calls them each by name. Because of his great power and mighty strength, not one of them is missing. Why do you say, O Jacob, and complain, O Israel, “My way is hidden from the Lord; my cause is disregarded by my God”? Do you not know? Have you not heard? The LORD is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth’
Time and time again, the Lord reveals Himself and refers to Himself as the Creator, but it is important not just because that is what happened. It is important because the Son and the Spirit were involved in it as well. So the majestic revelatory passages about the Son in John 1, Colossians 1, Hebrews 1 and Revelation 1 can all be brought into question because each one refers to Him in creation.
It is important also because it means we are not creatures of circumstance and chance. The universe did not just come together in one great happy explosion to make planets revolve around each other and an atmosphere with 71% nitrogen and 29% oxygen come together in astounding relation to one another, with just the right quantity to allow us to breathe.
No. You are not a mistake, a chance happening or a number. You are uniquely created by the Creator and are designed by Him to function best in relation to Him. You are His creation – with a purpose to live for and a hope that endures because He did not just create and then abandon us. He is moving towards the goal of uniting all things under Christ. He is moving us towards that goal and He is working in us and writing our lives as living letters. You are the paper He writes on when He sends His love letter to the world. His world. We are not the captains of our own souls – thankfully! We are not the masters of our fate, we are part of His creation and responsible to Him.
So I rest my case for my nomination of the ten most important words in the Bible. It really is all or nothing. The Word of God does begin with a big bang, but it is a statement of revelation, and everything else stems from that. I believe it. Do you?
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Well written,informative and on topic.
Thanks for sharing.
God bless~