Having the Right Knowledge About God

Scripture:  Genesis 1

Since we are called to connect with God through faith, isn’t it critical to our faith that we have an accurate picture and understanding of God -- a picture of God that creates in us awe, reverence, amazement, wonderment, and the appropriate fear that leads to worship? This is the idea that the Book of Proverbs reveals to us about having this quality of beginning knowledge of God when it says that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge (1:7), and the beginning wisdom of (9:10).

The very first book of the Bible reveals to us the first understanding God wants His people to have about Him.  The Book of Genesis was God using Moses to teach His people who had been in 400 years of Egyptian culture and bondage, and they needed to be reeducated about Him.  It also serves as the foundation for us to have faith in the one true and living God who created the universe (Hebrews 11:3).  The creation accounts are essential to our faith in God; because they reveal to us that God is a God of great power, order, and He has purpose for everything that he has created.

 His creative power teaches us that God can do anything He wills, and He can make something when there appears to be nothing.  One of the great debates between the believing world and the unbelieving world centers around the truth of creation.  To say that creation just happened is not only without any foundation of reason, it proceeds from a blind faith that tries to deny God.   It requires more faith to believe this lie than to believe that God created the heavens, earth, and mankind.

 Faith rests not only on the fact that God formed creation and filled His creation, but He did it with a prescribed order.  He not only did it, but He established the order and boundaries of function that would continue in accordance to the original creative command.  Light and dark don’t get mixed up.  Day is day and night remains night.  The stars, planets, and our earth hang and orbit while maintaining necessary distance from one another or else we would have catastrophic destruction in the heavens and earth.  He  created days, weeks, the cycle of the seasons, and all these things carry on century after century in the prescribed order as was commanded in the creative design of God.  This knowledge serves to stabilize our faith in God -- being a God of order.  It also allows us to  rest in the certainty that He says what He means, and what He intends we can always count on.

 Knowledge of His creative power and His creative order are critical.  Also, we must know and rest our faith on the fact that He is a God who has purpose for what He has created.  Whether it is the inanimate or animate creations, each has a purpose or function in God’s world.  From the lower forms of life to the highest form of human creation, God has a purpose for each of us.  What a privilege to all of His creation to be an expression of His creative design, and He said it was good.  But to us, we have been granted the highest purpose of life, which is to express to one another the likeness and image of the invisible God who made us.  God did not simply make creation for Himself; but creation was made for us, and we have been given His charge to rule creation as a gift of love from Him.

Prayer:  Father, when I think on the beauty and great specificity of your creation, I marvel at what You have done.  Your power, order, and purpose, causes me to marvel in my worship of You -- and to ask my own heart that same question that Isaiah said to You --“To whom then will I like You?  There is none like You.  Thank You for making Yourself a part of my life. In Jesus Name. Amen.

(by Pastor Wayne Cockrell)