The Call (Part Four)

“Now the Lord had said to Abram:

‘Get out of your country,
From your family
And from your father’s house,
To a land that I will show you.
I will make you a great nation;
I will bless you
And make your name great;
And you shall be a blessing.
I will bless those who bless you,
And I will curse him who curses you;
And in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.’”
(Genesis 12:1–3)

God called Abraham (1) to leave and (2) to follow, and He promised (3) to bless him and (4) to make him a blessing to others. These are God’s call and promises to us.

Much of the time, however, we get focused on #3 to the exclusion of the others. It is not wrong but altogether right for us to look to God for His blessing. “Every good and perfect gift is from above and comes down from the Father of lights,” and God wants us to look to Him for every good thing and to give thanks to Him for every good that comes to us. (That is the essence of “prayer” and “thanksgiving.”)

But it is inextricably woven into the woof and warp of the universe that the blessing of God is all tied up with loving and leaving—loving God above all else and with all your heart, loving your neighbor and desiring his good as much as you desire your own, and walking away from your own sin, the world of sin, and the devil who keeps calling you back to it.

Adam’s eldest son Cain is one who desired the one without the other. He was all about the blessing of God. And when he saw it falling on his brother Abel and not himself, he responded with anger and envy. “How come—he got—why didn’t I—?” God’s answer was simple: If you do well, if you do what is right, the blessing will come—trust Me. Cain was called to leave his sin behind, including his anger and envy, to seek the pleasure of God (“find out what is the will of God and do it”), and to love his brother as himself—to rejoice in his blessing as much as he would rejoice in his own. Cain resisted, however, and blessing eluded him the rest of his long and lonely life.

Certainly God has blessed us without our having to do a thing, just as Cain had been blessed prior to his own downfall as well. And God is gracious and merciful to offer us forgiveness and second chances when we get off track. For these things we give thanks, and without the grace and mercy and initiative of God, there is no blessing and no expectation.

But Abraham would never have received what God had promised—blessing to him and through him—if he had not responded the way God calls us to respond, namely, through repentance and faith, through turning from idols to serve the living and true God, through giving up all to follow Christ. But thank God he did, and thank God for the grace He gives for us to do the same.

“Grant us Your blessing, O Lord, and make us a conduit of blessing to others. Lead us not into temptation but into your paths of righteousness, and grant to us a persevering faith and a thorough repentance. We give thanks to You for all good things, dear God, and we look to You for all blessing and happiness and goodness in this life and throughout eternity, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.”

The Call (Part Three)

“Now the Lord had said to Abram:
‘Get out of your country,
From your family
And from your father’s house,
To a land that I will show you.
I will make you a great nation;
I will bless you
And make your name great;
And you shall be a blessing.
I will bless those who bless you,
And I will curse him who curses you;
And in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.’”
(Genesis 12:1–3)

So does God promise us everything He promised to Abraham? Well, in one sense, of course, these promises are Abraham-specific. God does not call every single individual Christian to be the father of many nations, the father of all the faithful, the progenitor of the race that produces the Messiah. But in another sense, there are some general observations that are applicable to us.

For one thing, as has been pointed out, those who follow Christ, to the extent they follow Christ, have a tremendous impact for good, for blessing, not only on their own direct descendents but on the countless others their lives and the lives of their descendents touch. In this way, by either following Christ or not, we choose to be either more or less a blessing or a curse to our family and the “families of the earth.”

This is easily seen, but it goes down hard for the atomistic, individualistic, taking-care-of-me-and-nobody-else culture and society we have inherited in the West over the past century or so. Abraham’s example shows what one man’s faith combined with the blessing of God can do to affect not only the course of history but the salvation and redemption and restoration of the whole world. We are called to be faithful, and the measure of our faithfulness, by God’s grace, shows up down the line.

Another general principle we see in Abraham’s call is the fact that, while God pours out blessings on His followers in abundance, there are always going to be those who pour on the curses as well (fortunately without the same effectiveness!). Jesus told His disciples that if the world hated Him (and it did for the most part), then the world was certain to hate those who walked closely in His steps. This “enmity” all comes by degrees, but no matter the opposition, no matter the persecution, no matter the sin-full treatment received by the followers of the call of God, you can count on God to take care of it—somehow, some way. Those who pray for the blessing of God’s children will be blessed themselves, God guarantees. Those who call on God to curse them will not only have their prayers turned aside but they will receive back on themselves the very curses they send out. Like the apostle Paul said, if God is for us, who can be against us? (Romans 8:31)

God is going to take care of His own. Our part is to trust the One we follow, obey the One we trust. If all the world stands against us, seeks on the one hand to lead us down paths of unrighteousness and then just as passionately seeks on the other to make us pay in spades for walking down any other, God will stand by us and help us to stand in the face of temptation and trouble from any quarter. He who calls is faithful and will do it.

“God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, we call upon the God of our fathers, asking that You make us faithful fathers in our turn. Help us to be faithful to You, to this generation, and to the ones following by following ourselves Your call and in Your steps. Protect us from our enemies, dear God: keep us from falling into temptation on the right hand or the left, keep us from following the world itself as well as from fainting under its rejection of us when we don’t. Thank You, heavenly Father, for the greatest blessing of all, salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ, and we pray for His kingdom to come in might, blessing all the nations of the earth to the great glory of the Trinity, in Christ’s name. Amen.”

The Call (Part Two)

“Now the Lord had said to Abram:

‘Get out of your country,
From your family
And from your father’s house,
To a land that I will show you.
I will make you a great nation;
I will bless you
And make your name great;
And you shall be a blessing.
I will bless those who bless you,
And I will curse him who curses you;
And in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.’”
(Genesis 12:1–3)

The call of God comes to a person where he is. Abraham did not go out to meet God and introduce himself, looking for a job or a place in His graces. God went looking for Abraham, and He found him sipping tea alongside a bunch of idol-worshipers at Ur of the Chaldees. And we like this part of the call, because we want to be taken as we are, where we are, with the clothes we have on, “just as I am,” nothing I have to do to receive the grace of God—except receive it, that is.

The catch is, the call doesn’t leave us there. That is exactly what the call is all about—it is a call to leave, to go out, to change, to do something, and to do something different from what we have been doing. Abraham had to leave the tea sitting on the table and follow God into the unknown, “a land that I will show you,” a land he had never seen before. Yes, God came to him first, and God is going to take him where he needs to go. But Abraham cannot follow the call of God and also stay where God found him.

Some who thought they wanted to follow Christ got snagged on this part of the call. “Lord, let me first go and bury my father.” Seems like a reasonable request to us—“honor your father and mother,” and all that. But Jesus replied, “Follow Me, and let the dead bury their own dead.” This man wanted to stick around and take care of business when the call of God led him across the lake. On one side were the spiritually dead; on the other was Life Himself.

Abraham had his choice, and we have ours. Will we follow or stay? We cannot have it both ways. Following Christ means leaving a lot behind—pet sins, “innate” personalities, long-held relationships, otherwise justifiable loyalties, comforts, and identities. But what an exchange! Following Christ also means becoming a son of God, inheriting the blessing of God, becoming a blessing to the rest of the world, and living as a citizen of the truly Eternal City. It means radical change from who we were to what God calls us to be, from a life that is doomed to a life full of never-ending love and joy and peace and holiness.

God calls. We follow. And the blessing of God follows us!

“God, we give thanks for Your call on our lives, and we pray we would be faithful followers. Do not leave us where we are, dear God, but take us where You want us to be, make us what You want us to be, mold us and shape us into the very image of Christ. Grant to us the grace to leave behind the world and our sins and whatever else that keeps us from following You; and grant to us the blessing You promise to all those who follow You, we pray in Christ’s name. Amen.”

The Call (Part One)

“Now the Lord had said to Abram:

‘Get out of your country,
From your family
And from your father’s house,
To a land that I will show you.
I will make you a great nation;
I will bless you
And make your name great;
And you shall be a blessing.
I will bless those who bless you,
And I will curse him who curses you;
And in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.’”
(Genesis 12:1–3)

The call to Abraham was a specific call, but, as we can see clearly, both God’s call and Abraham’s answer had an impact, direct and indirect, on countless others, including you and me. Because God chose Abraham, because God honored His word, and because Abraham obeyed and followed God, your family and my family and all the world have received the blessing given in this one call.

God calls each one of us in a similar way. God may not call each one of us to leave our native land—especially at age seventy-five when most folks are thinking more about settling down! But God does call each of us, at least in one sense, to “leave his father and mother” (Genesis 2:24), begin to live his own life responsibly before God, and leave his own mark on the world. And we will, you know, one way or another. Whom I marry, how I raise a family, how I respond to life as it comes to me, what I do with both the little things and the big will all have an incredible effect on those whom my life touches in some way—those around me now, my own descendants, and all of the others (a lot more than one might think) who are affected indirectly by my obedience and disobedience, my maturity or lack thereof, my living-by-the-grace-of-God and faith.

God also calls each one of us to leave “the world” behind in following Him, just as He called Abraham to do. Abraham left behind a lot more than relatives. When he chose to answer the call and follow Jehovah, he left behind his gods. And he left behind an entire culture shaped by those gods. He left behind a life lived by faith in gods who cannot and will not deliver and began to live by faith in a God whose blessing reaches not only his life but throughout the world and throughout eternity.

As I said, this is our call as well. God has obviously called us to live in the physical world—that is the one He has created and the one in which He has planted us—so that is not the world from which He calls us. Rather, God calls us out of the world of sin/the flesh/and the devil that we might live in the world as citizens of another Country, blazing lights shining in what is otherwise darkness, citizens of the New World for which Christ has died and risen again, members of a New Family, a New Humanity, with Jesus Christ as our New Adam and faithful Father of All Nations.

Answer the call as Abraham did: by faith and in obedience. You have answered the call by following Christ and being separated from the world. Be a faithful follower, travel the course, plant yourself in the new land, lead your own family as those who inhabit a new culture and a new world, and look for the blessing of God not only to be poured out on your own family but to overflow to the whole world.

“Great and heavenly Father, we thank You for Your call to Abraham, for Your choosing him and blessing him, which blessing has reached to us. We give You thanks for Abraham’s faithfulness and obedience, and we pray You would make us like him, answering Your call to us, following You into new worlds, leaving behind the gods who do not satisfy. Thank You above all for our faithful Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, who also answered Your call with faith and obedience, resulting in our salvation and the salvation of the world; and we pray gratefully in His most holy and wonderful name. Amen.”

Red Dirt

“And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being.” (Genesis 2:7)

The name Adam literally means “red earth” or “red dirt.” This might lead one to believe Paradise was actually located somewhere around here where I live because we have certainly got the stuff. Our local Red River does not have its name for nothing. Certain other aspects of paradise may have slipped away over time, of course, but the red clay on which my lawn struggles to eke out a living is still with us, apparently, from creation days.

What is the difference between me and the red mud that clings to my boots for dear life on a rainy day? The breath of God—and that is about it.

It is so helpful for us to remember we are but dust. Dirt is, well, dirty. I again want to give thanks for it. All of my food either has its roots in it or chews on that which does. Dirt forms the ground upon which I stand, upon which my house stands, upon which the road lies that leads to everywhere I go and do and live. Thank God for dirt.

But after all is said in its praise, we sweep it up off our floors, wash it off our children’s hands, wipe it off the surface of everything in our homes, and washing-machine it out of our clothes. We don’t even want it on our cars! All sorts of nasty things live in the dirt, like bugs and worms and germs and bacterial infections waiting to jump on us and devour us from the inside out. Most folks, to one degree or another, have some sort of love-hate relationship with dirt. We appreciate its gift to mankind, but when it is all said and done, dirt has got to know its place, and that is in the backyard, on the baseball field, beneath the grass, and on the back roads, out of town.

That is the stuff from which we are made. We are but dust. Add a little water, a little wind blowing in and out, a little cellular fire, and presto, you have a clay-formed man who walks, eats, and thinks. Take away the wind-water-and-fire, and, as Kansas put it, all we are is dust in the wind.

This should certainly keep us humble, of course. But it should also lead us to wonder at the mysterious and marvelous ways of God. For this is what He always does: He takes what is lowly and exalts it, redeems what is “worthless” and gives it glory, takes what is worse than dead and gives it life.

Defiled by sin, we have covered ourselves with earthiness, dirtiness—even our best efforts are but filthy rags. God adds the water of baptism, breathes in us the Spirit-Wind of God, sets tongues of fire to dancing on our heads, and presto once again, you have a damned and dirty sinner transformed into an immortal saint, clothed in the white robes of Christ’s righteousness. Men of clay, yes; but with the touch of God—and the touch of God alone—we are fashioned over again into the most glorious masterpiece of all creation, made in the image of God Himself, “red dirt” become living and eternal souls in the Second Adam, our Lord Jesus Christ.

“Father in heaven, Creator of mankind and all the world, we give You thanks for creating us and for forming us from the dust of the ground. Help us to remember our humble beginnings, forgive us our sins for Christ’s sake, and mold us and fashion us and make us new in the image of our Lord Jesus Christ, in whose name we pray. Amen.”

The Very Good

“Then God saw everything that He had made, and indeed it was very good.” (Genesis 1:31)

Emphasis on very. Not “satisfactory.” Not “that’ll do.” Not “useful” or “efficient” or “nice.” It was very. The Hebrew word might also be translated, with a little more punch, exceedingly, abundantly, with a great deal of much-ness (won’t exactly find this last one in the lexicon, but the sense is there, you know). In other words, it just doesn’t get any better than this. This is indeed the best of all possible worlds.

Now if God is exceedingly, abundantly, mucho happy with it all—forget about sin, death, and the devil for a minute—how much more so should we be. Look around on all that God has made, the way He has made it, and give thanks. God is very good. The world He has made is very good—the world and everything in it.

Don’t like Brussels sprouts? They are very good. Add a little butter and salt, and give thanks for them.

Don’t like math? You are not allowed to dislike it. It is very good—God says so. Give thanks for the way numbers work in the world, and do your homework.

Can’t stand us men? God made mankind male and female and called it “very good.” I know it’s a stretch, but . . . give thanks for them and the way God made them, and ask God for help in seeing them from God’s “very-good” perspective.

Don’t like children? God made the world to be full of them. They are very good. I know they are not always “very good” in the moral sense—sometimes they can be really, really bad. But not only are they made in the image of God, they are the models for those who would be heirs of the kingdom of God. Give thanks for them, and ask God to change your heart (and theirs) to conform to His.

Give thanks in everything and for all things, God says. Everything God has made and everything God has done is very good.

All right, Mr. Pollyanna, you say, when do we add back in all the dark side of the universe? We all know there is plenty not only not very good but not good at all. Yes, that is true. I was getting to that. Give thanks for that too. Since God causes all things to work together for our good, you can, at least in that sense, give thanks for all things without discrimination. But very good loses its meaning fairly quickly if there is not a very bad for contrast’s sake. Bring back into the picture sin, death, and the devil. You are permitted to hate these things, and with passion. God hates them too. That is why He has defeated them through the death of our Lord Jesus Christ—which was a very bad thing turned to our very greatest good.

In fact, because there is so much bad in the world, it is that much more important for us to remember, rejoice in, give thanks for, and enjoy to the max the so much more very-good stuff of which this world is made and the very good and gracious God who made it. Abhor what is evil, but embrace with fervent love and gratitude the good—which includes the exceedingly and abundantly good universe God crafted with His own hands in six days.

“Lord God, we give You thanks for the very good world You have made and all of the very good and wonderful things You have placed in it. We give You thanks also for being a sovereign Lord over all things who causes all things—good and bad—to work together for our good. We thank You most of all for our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom and for whom all things are created, and for the redemption of creation through His death, burial, and resurrection. Make us by Your Holy Spirit after His image, we pray in Christ’s name. Amen.”

Giving Us Richly All Things to Enjoy

“And God said, ‘See, I have given you every herb that yields seed which is on the face of all the earth, and every tree whose fruit yields seed; to you it shall be for food. Also, to every beast of the earth, to every bird of the air, and to everything that creeps on the earth, in which there is life, I have given every green herb for food.’” (Genesis 1:29, 30)

The greatest thing to see here is God’s provision of food to all the animals and to all mankind. As God did at creation, so He does today: Our daily bread comes from the hand of God, and so we ought to look to Him for it in prayer and so we ought to give thanks for it every time we pop it into our mouths, roll it around on our tongues, and fill our fat little paunches with it. Food is our life, and with it God sees to it His creation is fed and thriving.

But God is not utilitarian: He did not make food merely for eating. He made food for enjoying. When God made our food for us, He made it taste good. Delicious. Joyous. Satisfying to the soul as well as to the body—to the whole man. Tongues didn’t have to have taste buds that sent pleasure messages—sometimes simple, sometimes intricate—to our busy brains. But they do, and in abundance. God is a rich man, and He knows how to be extravagant, and so He gave us richly all good things—including our daily food—for us to enjoy. (1 Timothy 6:17) Give God thanks, and live out your gratefulness sincerely by enjoying the food with which He feeds you.

It would appear on the surface of things that God made man “in his perfection” vegetarian, and there is actually no shortage of folks these days using this doctrine to teach vegetarianism as the superior way of life. Nobody loves vegetables and fruits and grains more than I. Give me a little butter for my sautéed veggies, melt a little of the same on fresh baked bread—and little heavy cream on frozen blueberries is to die for—but I can give a paean of praise for fruits and vegetables like no man. Yet Christians are not vegetarians.

God commands man to eat meat—yes, the red kind that comes from little lambs and cowsie-wowsies—just a few chapters later in the re-creation of the world (Genesis 9), and we are to give thanks for this just as we are to give thanks for the green stuff: “Every moving thing that lives shall be food for you. I have given you all things, even as the green herbs.” And if you think this is merely a concession for weak, sinning, fallen-from-grace man, it gets a little hard to explain the obedient meat-eater Jesus. Jesus ate the Passover lamb and gave thanks for it; Jesus ate fish as a resurrected Man—broiled, on the beach, at sunrise, waves licking the shore, smoke of the campfire mingled with the succulence—and He gave thanks for it. Vegetarians, as so many others, are not only missing out on God’s good gifts given for us to enjoy; they are, as so many others, swept up in that utterly vain pursuit of attempting to be holier-than-Jesus.

The heresy of vegetarianism is mentioned in the New Testament as one of those nasty “doctrines of demons,” “commanding to abstain from foods which God created to be received with thanksgiving by those who believe and know the truth. For every creature of God is good, and nothing is to be refused if it is received with thanksgiving; for it is sanctified by the word of God and prayer.” (1 Timothy 4:1, 3, 4) Christians are omnivores, enjoying the carne with the herbs, giving thanks for it all as the great gift it is from God’s hand to our mouths.

“Great God in heaven above, we give thanks for a world filled with delicious food that not only keeps our mortal bodies revved up and running but delights the senses just as well. We thank You for giving the “green herbs” for mankind’s first course and for adding in the roast beef as the main later on. And we pray You would make us truly grateful, enjoying the rich gifts You give us each breakfast, lunch, and supper. We pray in Christ’s name. Amen.”

Be Fruitful and Multiply

“Then God blessed them, and God said to them, ‘Be fruitful and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it; have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over every living thing that moves on the earth.’” (Genesis 1:28)

When God made man and woman, He gave them a blessing—a blessing which was also a command: “Be fruitful and multiply.” He gave the same blessing/command to the fish and the birds (v. 22), and, boy, have they obeyed! And although it is not recorded specifically here, I have to believe God gave the same sort of blessing to the land animals and creepy, crawly things—at least to rabbits and mice, cockroaches and fire ants—and He may have even given it to things like my mistakes and the items under my children’s beds. At any rate, the world has had no problem filling up, and mankind has, for the most part, been happy to comply.

I say “for the most part” because at times (and there is no time like the present) man has not only foolishly rejected the blessing but has withstood it, slighting the command. On the other hand, we can look at the refusal on the part of men and women either to marry or have children or both as one more sign of God’s judgment and the withdrawal of His blessing. Either way we look at it, God’s command to us to “get married and have lots of kids” is found in that corner of creation He labeled “very good” (see v.31), and we are blind and foolish not to see it that way too. That is the message of God’s Word from here at the beginning to the very end: Fruitful marriage is a blessing. Give God thanks for it, and do your part to bring it about.

As with so many other things in this fallen world, however, it needs to be said quickly that if an otherwise happy couple cannot have children, it doesn’t necessarily mean they are “under God’s curse” or that they are somehow being disobedient. There are people who are as fertile as all get out who also don’t want to have children, and there are people who are not but do. That is part of the Jobian world in which we live, where God’s purposes for each of us are overly scrutinized in vain. What is one to do? As with all things, pray, obey, and give thanks. Pray for good marriages, be obedient to God in them, and pray for God to reward you with children. And then give God thanks for whatever comes about (“in everything give thanks, for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you—1 Thessalonians 5:18).

“Lord God, we give You thanks again for the creation of man and woman, and we thank You for Your creation of billions upon billions of men and women and children down through the ages to the present. We thank You for the “be-fruitful-and-multiply” blessing You have poured out on mankind—to the tune of over five billion living in our time—and we pray for Your blessing to multiply as well. God, grant us good marriages, and, God, grant us good children, who will love You and serve You and glorify You in their lives forever. We pray You would grow Your kingdom through the multiplication of converts, and we pray You would grow Your kingdom through the multiplication of godly families and the godly individuals who fill them. Fill the earth with Your people, dear God, and help us to be both faithful and grateful, we pray in Christ’s name. Amen.”

Male and Female Created He Them

"Male and female He created them.” (Genesis 1:27)

I give God thanks for maleness and femaleness. For diversity and oneness. For sugar and spice and everything nice, on the one hand; and for snakes and snails and puppy dog tails, on the other. Thank God for the distinction of the sexes and for the oneness of the flesh.

I give God thanks for Adam and Eve, for husbands and wives, for mothers and fathers, for ancestors and ancestresses, for all the world of men and women who have joined God—at His invitation—in making this world what it is.

I give God thanks for men who have worked in the field and women who have worked at home. I give God thanks for women who have worked in the field and in the home, and for husbands who have worked in both places alongside them.

I give God thanks for a man’s initiative and for a woman’s intuition (uncanny and uncomfortable as it can be for us men). I thank God for making men more one thing and women more another and for throwing us together that we might learn from one another. Thank God for weaker vessels and stronger vessels who are co-heirs of the grace of life. God help us to live with one another in understanding.

I give God thanks for the way of a man with a maiden, as wonderful as a ship at sea, a snake on a rock, or an eagle in flight (all of which are too wonderful for me—I cannot understand them). I give God thanks for His built-in design for attraction to the opposite sex and for the equally God-given instinct for devotion and faithfulness and loyalty to one other for life.

I give God thanks for wives and daughters, for helpmeets, for companionship, for co-regents—queens—to rule over the world alongside men. I give thanks for my wife, for my two daughters, for the joy and goodness and industry and femininity they bring to our home. I give God thanks for not leaving me alone because He knew it was not good for me to be alone, because He knew I was better off living in society, with a woman, with this one woman, and with the be-fruitful-and-multiplied family who came of our oneness.

Give thanks to God for men and women, boys and girls, husbands and wives, mothers and fathers, sons and daughters, boyfriends and girlfriends, grandpas and grandmas. Give thanks for courtships and weddings, for long-and happy-but-not-because-it’s-easy marriages, for kisses and hugs, for oneness of body/soul/spirit.

“Lord God, we give You thanks for the wonderful way in which You have made us, for making us male and female. Grant grace to us as we live with one another as husbands and wives, fathers and mothers, sisters and brothers, as men and women. Teach us how to honor one another, be grateful for one another, appreciate one another, and be at peace with one another. Grant us oneness in the midst of our God-created diversity, and teach us to glory in our differences as we pursue the unity of purpose with which You created us in the beginning. We give You thanks most of all for our Lord Jesus Christ and for the great mystery of making us His bride, spotless and glorious in time, and we pray in His name. Amen.”

In the Image of God

“So God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.” (Genesis 1:27)

To say that man is made in the image of God is not to say that man is like God in every way. The image of something is not that thing itself. When I look at a photograph of one of my children, I see something that looks an awful lot like one of my kids, and it may tell me an awful lot about him. But it does not speak to me, cannot hug me, is not going to think about me, and is not going to get its feelings hurt when I stick it in a drawer. My child, on the other hand, can speak, hug, think, and get his feelings hurt (especially if I try sticking him in a drawer!). There is a definite contrast between the image and the real thing.

In a similar way, it is important for us to remember we are made in the image of God but certainly are not God nor are we like God in every way. God is the Creator; we are the created. God is eternal; we have a beginning. God is indestructible; we are only held together by His will. God is infinite; we have definite boundaries (we cannot even understand infinity). God is all-powerful; we can hardly make ourselves get out of bed.

God is perfect; we are knot.

All that said, however, we are a lot more like God than the photograph is of my child. God thinks; so does man. God, a Trinity, lives in community; man was created as a family. God desires and wills and creates; man does the same, although we don’t create ex nihilo but only with the stuff God has made. God loves; man is given the capacity to do so, even if we do a sorry job at it most of the time. God the Trinity is diverse yet one; man was created male and female—lots of differences—yet they are “one flesh.”

Jesus, the perfect Man, is said by Scripture to be “the express image of [God’s] person.” He, of course, is God as well. But if we want to know what man was created to be, we must look to Him. Jesus is holy, loving, humble, joyful, courageous, faithful, patient, wise, thoughtful, self-denying, purposeful, and entirely devoted at all times and in every way to do God’s will. He loves all things good and hates all things evil. He speaks the truth and lives truly. He is filled with God’s Spirit, is led by God’s Spirit, and is moved by God’s Spirit to do all God the Father desires of Him.

When man sinned, it is true the image of God in him was marred. But it was not erased. And through the re-creation made possible by our Lord Jesus Christ the image of God in man is being restored. We will always be the creature worshiping and following and serving the Creator, and we will always be but an image. But through Jesus Christ our Lord, the Man who is God, we are becoming all that He created us to be, a true and glorious reflection of Glory and Truth Himself.

“Lord God, we give You thanks this day for the creation of man, for Your creating us, giving us existence and life. We give You thanks for creating us in Your image. God forgive us for our blurring that image through our sin and rebellion against Your holy will. Have mercy on us through our Lord Jesus Christ, re-create us after His image, that we might be all You intended man to be in the first place. We pray in Christ’s name. Amen.”

Dominion

“Then God said, ‘Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness: let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.’” (Genesis 1:26)

When first the word dominion is uttered, it can at times conjure up images of kings and lords, either in their kingly and lordly robes or whatever they want to wear, sitting on top of it all, calling all the shots, “dominating” the action and other people. And this is pretty much the way a lot of people like to think of this “gift from God,” whether they are applying it to man’s universal dominion over the created order or their own dominion in one of their own little kingdoms: home, marriage, self, business, church, state, friendships, or wherever else we find ourselves in some kind of pecking order.

Well, there is certainly a bit of truth in that take on things, but as with other “bits of truth,” it is in leaving out all the other bits that we always get ourselves into trouble. If, for example, a man perceives his role as “lord” in the home simply as his right to “make the final decision,” micromanage his wife’s and children’s affairs (“as long as they are under my roof”), order other folks around, having them serve him, then he is going to have a house out of order and a miserable one at that. If on the other hand, he gets a handle on what dominion really means and all it includes, he, by the grace of God, can have the peace and order, joy and happiness he’s looking for.

The same is true in every other sphere, and it is obviously true generally for mankind’s dominion over the earth. Some men interpret dominion as man’s right simply to catch as many fish, shoot as many birds, slaughter as many cattle, and eliminate as many snakes and bugs as one possibly can. I can’t tell you how many times I have heard Genesis 1:26 referred to as somebody’s child is squashing a June bug on the concrete driveway. OK, well, yes; but, again, if that is the primary application made, and certainly if it is the only app. made, then squashing, catching, shooting, slaughtering, smashing, controlling, manipulating, using, discarding, etc. becomes for us not only our God-given right, but our God-given responsibility.

Responsibility. There is a good word if we will look to God how to use it correctly. Man was created in God’s image, according to His likeness. If we want a good take on dominion, our only hope is to see how God applies the concept. It is true He calls all the shots. It is true He is the lawgiver and that all is created for His glory. But God is Trinity, and His dominion is for the sake of serving others. God exercises dominion through taking responsibility for giving, loving, serving, sacrificing, caring, nurturing, planning, growing, protecting, and providing. God cares for His creation and, in Christ, even died to redeem it and restore it—that is the “other bit” that makes all the difference in how we exercise the dominion God has given man over the world at large and over his multiple sub-kingdoms.

“Lord God, we give thanks to You this day for creating man in the image of God and for granting him lordship over all creation. We thank You that this lordship ultimately belongs to the Man our Lord Jesus Christ, and we thank You for His perfect dominion. We pray You would teach us to be like Him and that we would take up all of our responsibility to rule in our own sphere as He does in His—through grace and by faith, by justice and mercy, through service and sacrifice, with love and gentleness. Teach us to take care of the world in which we live, to be good stewards of it all, including those people and things entrusted to us in our own little kingdoms, we pray in Christ’s name. Amen.”

Doodle-bugs and Dinosaurs

“Then God said, ‘Let the earth bring forth the living creature according to its kind: cattle and creeping thing and beast of the earth, each according to its kind’; and it was so. And God made the beast of the earth according to its kind, cattle according to its kind, and everything that creeps on the earth according to its kind. And God saw that it was good.” (Genesis 1:24, 25)


My six-year-old son’s current fascinations include doodle-bugs (alias “rolly-pollies” or “pill bugs”) and dinosaurs. He looks under rocks for the one and pretends to be the other. I am at my best when I enter into this world with him (we have dinosaur fights frequently), and it reminds me of my own fascination with these things when I was his age. I too played with the doodle-bugs, and I too pretended dinosaurs.

Apparently God is fascinated with them as well: He made a whole world full of these and other things just as fascinating. Man might imagine other sorts of creatures, but who ever would have dreamed up a giraffe or a platypus? Penguins are hilarious. And why are dogs so much a man’s best friend? I mean they really can be—it’s uncanny. Have you ever seen something so beautiful as a horse in full gallop, so serene as a field full of sheep, so regal as a lion? I may have played with bugs, but as a child I watched a line of ants for hours (I should have learned more lessons from them: “Go to the ant, you sluggard! Consider her ways, and be wise.” —Proverbs 6:6). If I take the time for it—and I should—I can sit and watch in a similar way the squirrels and the rabbits of my back yard, and I have been captivated numerous times by the garden spiders and their zipper webs (throw a hapless moth into the web for quite a show!).

From the hippopotami and crocodiles of Africa to the crawdads and water moccasins of Arkansas, God’s creation is incredible. Panda bears and polar bears and orangutans and chimpanzees will always get my attention at a zoo. Even cats, nuisance though they can be (like us all), have something irresistibly attractive about them as well. Did you realize our whole world would fall apart if it were not held together by the bugs? And it would also fall apart if there were not other creatures to eat them! God has masterfully arranged everything just so—creeping thing, cattle, beast of the field, domestic animals—everything in its place, for its purpose, the greatest of which is to bring glory and pleasure to God and delightful enjoyment to man.

God be thanked for armadillos and skunks, worms and wolves, ground hogs and deer. Thank God for elephants and zebras, rhinos and cheetahs, gazelles and hyenas. Praise God for grizzly bears and buffalo, for iguanas and alligators, for termites and tarantulas. Give thanks for double-humped camels and stubborn mules, for dumb oxen and wise serpents, for anteaters and the ants to be eaten. God be praised for the multitude of wondrous land animals, so much like men themselves, so much from whom to learn, so helpful, beautiful, enjoyable—and fascinating—to six-year-olds and old men alike.

“Great Creator of all the world, we give thanks for the animals and for the capability you have given us to wonder at them. Thank You for the animals we eat and for keeping us from being eaten by others! Thank You for the dinosaurs and dragons of old, and thank You for the doodle-bugs and giraffes we still have with us. Help us to learn from them, enjoy them, be fascinated by them, take care of them, use them, and govern over them as You intend for us to do. We thank You above all for our Lord Jesus Christ, the Lion of Judah who is also the Lamb of God, and we pray You would make us like Him. Amen.”

Eagles and Whales

“Then God said, ‘Let the waters abound with an abundance of living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth across the face of the firmament of the heavens.’ So God created great sea creatures and every living thing that moves, with which the waters abounded, according to their kind and every winged bird according to its kind. And God saw that it was good. And God blessed them, saying, ‘Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the waters in the seas, and let birds multiply on the earth. So the evening and the morning were the fifth day.” (Genesis 1:20–23)

On the second day of creation God separated “waters above” from “waters below,” creating a firmament—the sky. Third-day creation saw God telling the waters below to go to their assigned places, not only making for continents and islands and mountains and valleys, but also creating seas and lakes and rivers and oceans. Now God creates inhabitants for these homes, players for the stage He has already set: fish and birds and everything in between.

God be praised for shrimp and whales, sharks and minnows, jellyfish and giant squid. Give God thanks for sea anemones, clown fish, angel fish, and Sammy suckers; for hermit crabs and oysters and lobsters and clams; for piranha and octopi and sting rays and dolphins. Thank God for the great sea creatures: for Loch Ness monsters and Job’s Leviathan and the fish who swallowed Jonah. Thank God for rainbow trout and wide-mouth bass, for Alaskan salmon and albacore tuna. God moved over the surface of the waters, blessed them, and they are teeming with life and beauty and wonder.

God be praised for eagles and sparrows, hummingbirds and buzzards, bats and mosquitoes. Give God thanks for mockingbirds, cardinals, bluebirds, and finches; for doves, quail, and pheasants; for ducks and geese. Thank God for toucans, parrots, canaries, and nightingales; for owls and hawks, robins and purple martins; for swans and flamingoes and seagulls and heron. Thank God for birdsong and fried chicken, for Canadian geese overhead, for turkey dinners and peacock feathers. God breathed a blessing in the air, commanding fruitfulness and abundance, and the sky grew wings and beaks and exquisite colors of every shade.

“We give You thanks, O God, for the multitudes of joy-filled creatures with which You have populated the heavens and the waters below, and we pray You would bless us along with them—bless us and multiply us on the earth—that we might bring glory to You in the depths and the heights. We give You thanks for our Lord Jesus Christ, who has gathered us under the safety of His wings, for the great Fisher of Men, who has gathered us into His kingdom, and in His name we pray and give thanks. Amen.”

Lights

“Then God said, ‘Let there be lights in the firmament of the heavens to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs and seasons, and for days and years; and let them be for lights in the firmament of the heavens to give light on the earth’; and it was so. Then God made two great lights: the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night. He made the stars also. God set them in the firmament of the heavens to give light on the earth, and to rule over the day and over the night, and to divide the light from the darkness. And God saw that it was good. So the evening and the morning were the fourth day.” (Genesis 1:14–19)

By the fourth day of creation God had already turned the empty canvas into a living, growing, four-dimensional masterpiece, full of beauty and wonder and purpose. Now God gets happy. He was already happy, of course, but now He pulls out the fireworks. It’s as if He’s laid the carpet, painted the walls, started filling in with some furniture, and then the ceiling catches His eye: “That will not do. Need a little more excitement in that corner of creation.” And then He got busy.

Homer’s “rosy-fingered Dawn” begins the show. The sun will not only be “the greater light to rule the day,” reigning from his throne on high, but he will now be the source of all light and life that gives life to all living things in the world. His heat warms; his heat withers. All are under his all-seeing eye, all depend on him for life, all are under his domain. The sun reigns as king. No wonder those who left off worshiping God the creator chose early as substitute the sun as their god. But the sun himself is unwilling, of course: his glory reflects the glory of the God who made him. Jesus is our Sun of Righteousness, the Light of the World, who gives life and light to all the world, “healing in His wings.”

Next the moon in her own turn, in this perfectly hierarchical world, is made to reflect the glory of the sun. She certainly has her own glory and purpose, but the light shining in the midst of the darkness is a light borrowed from the brilliance of day. She waxes and wanes, as do you and I, but she is consistently there, and on her brightest nights, the waters above and below reflect her glory as well. God has created each of us to be “little moons,” reflecting the glory of Christ in the midst of a dark world: we are to be “blameless and harmless, children of God without fault in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation, among whom you shine as lights in the world, holding fast the word of life” (Philippians 2:15).

“He made the stars also.” God is sometimes given to understatement. Who would have known these tiny little sparkling specks strewn promiscuously across the blackness of the heavens are so many more suns and moons and worlds themselves—millions of them dancing across millions of light-years of vastness—God only knows how many and how far and how vast! We who are children of Abraham with the like faith of Abraham, worshipers of the God who made the heavens and the earth, are not only the dust of the earth, numbering as the “sands of the seashore,” but we are also the stars of the sky. Jesus is the Morning Star, the first among who-knows-how-many brethren, and we will reign with Him forever, world without end. Amen!

“God, we give You thanks for the sun, moon, and stars, for the glory of the day, for the glory of the night. We pray You would make us indeed to be the light of the world, lights shining in the midst of the darkness of the world, reflecting always the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ, in whose name we pray. Amen.”

Third-Day Plantings

“Then God said, ‘Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb that yields seed, and the fruit tree that yields fruit according to its kind, whose seed is in itself, on the earth’; and it was so. And the earth brought forth grass, the herb that yields seed according to its kind, and the tree that yields fruit, whose seed is in itself according to its kind. And God saw that it was good. So the evening and the morning were the third day.” (Genesis 1:11–13)

I give God thanks for onions. And purple hull peas, juicy tomatoes, summer squash, and homemade bread. Sweet corn, sweet peppers, hot peppers, and fried okra. God be thanked for rice, steaming, with loads of butter and salt; a plateful of pasta, drowned in tomato and meat sauce; rolled oats or a bowl full of grits, accompanied by, among other things, warm toast, fresh from the oven, hidden comprehensively by blackberry jelly. I give God thanks for peach pound cake, frozen blueberries with a little cream poured over them, watermelon on a sweaty August afternoon, warm butternut squash pie on a crisp autumn day. I give God thanks for peanuts, pecans, pistachios, and almonds; for grapefruit, oranges, apples, and grapes; for figs, plums, nectarines, and cantaloupe. Fruits and “herbs,” each according to its kind, and the list isn’t even half begun. God saw that it was good. I see it too. Give thanks to God.

I give thanks for grass to mow and weeds to pull, for thistle and clover, for dandelions and even ragweed. I give God thanks for day lilies, Easter lilies, tulips, and irises; for petunias, pansies, periwinkles, roses, azaleas, daisies, begonias, and creeping flox. I give God thanks for the pine trees that built my house, for the oak and elm that shade it. I give Him thanks for dogwood and redbuds in the spring, maples and hickory and sweetgum in the fall.

And the list goes on and on and on. A whole world full of trees and bushes and grasses and vegetables and fruit and flowers and moss and seaweed and mushrooms, all reseeding themselves, generation after generation, year after year, blessing their Creator, and blessing those made in His image.

“Lord God, for all this, we give You thanks—for the provision, for the beauty, for the taste of good food, for the sight and smell of flowers, for the feel of the grass between our toes, for the sound of the wind in the leaves of the trees. Thank You, dear God, for the Tree of Life, the Bread of Life, the Vine in Whom You have made us branches, our Lord Jesus Christ. Plant us firmly in Him, run our roots deep into the soil of Your Word, and produce within us and through us the holy fruit of Your Holy Spirit, we pray in Christ's name. Amen.”

Solid Ground

“Then God said, “Let the waters under the heavens be gathered together into one place, and let the dry land appear”; and it was so. And God called the dry land Earth, and the gathering together of the waters He called Seas. And God saw that it was good.” (Genesis 1:9, 10)

God began the third day by fashioning a home for man. We are not sea creatures, as much as we may love the roar of ocean waves crashing upon the shore, or as much as we may love to spend a day out in the boat, line in the water, today’s catch in the bucket. Every kid who loves to swim also loves, at some point, to get back to the side of the pool. I always wondered which was worse for the condemned in “The Man without a Country”: to be without a nation to call home, or never to set foot on dry land again the rest of his life. Thank God for creating dry land, fixed land, solid ground beneath our feet, the kind upon which one can stand upright.

God repeats Himself with the joy of creation. In Noah’s day the world is taken back to its all-watery stage, and He reforms it, re-creates it, slowly pulling the waters back again to reveal the new world, a new home for humanity. In the days of Moses, when God takes Abraham’s seed from the old world of slavery to a new world fashioned by Jehovah just for them, God pulls back the waters of the Red Sea, and a nation is born again walking through on dry land. When Joshua takes the helm and God is ready to bring the children of Israel into the Promised Land, God commands the waters of the Jordan as He did the waters at creation—dry land appears—and they march-step, amazed, into the new home God has prepared for them.

Thank God for dirt. Everything is made from it, including you and me. When God creates man, He does it by taking a handful of dust, swept up from the dirt floor of Adam’s new home, fashioning “dry land” into something even better, breathing the wind of God into this newly formed “world” of dirt and water. With every new “man-child” born, the waters are pulled back once again and a whole new world appears—one solid and dry, full of air for the lungs and ground to lie on, crawl on, learn to walk on, run on, ride bikes on.

When God re-creates us in Jesus Christ, we also come through the water—through the waters of baptism—and as we emerge like dry land out of the seas, we are a new world, a new creation in Christ. The old world unformed has passed away; behold, all things have become new. In this new dirt, this new man, full of the Holy Spirit, every good thing can now grow and bear fruit.


“Lord God, Creator of the Earth and the Seas, and all that is in them, we give You thanks for the wonders of the world You have created for us, including Your gift to us of dry land. We give You thanks for dirt in which to grow our food and shelter, the beauty of flowers and shrubs and every green thing. We give You thanks for mountains and valleys, marshlands and deserts, city parks, backyards, and old dirt roads. Grant to us this day that we might reflect Your glory, living and walking and working and playing on the Earth You have given us as our home. And recreate us in the image of the Second Adam, our Lord Jesus Christ, in whose name we pray. Amen.”

Look to the Heavens

“Then God said, ‘Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters.’ Thus God made the firmament, and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament; and it was so. And God called the firmament Heaven. So the evening and the morning were the second day.” (Genesis 1:6–8)

In most of our minds there are “the heavens,” and then there is Heaven. One is the sky, and the other is the “place” where God “lives.” The birds and the stars and the moon fly in the one, and angels fly in the other. God’s throne is in heaven, the earth is His footstool, and the sky fills up the space in between.

The Bible doesn’t always make this sort of distinction (although at one point it does mention different levels of heaven). At any rate, the Bible here says God created Heaven on the second day—Light on the first, Heaven on the second—and, as with all of His creation, it was a glorious masterpiece, a canvas upon which He continued splashing creation-color for several days after.

Not only birds but bats and bees and pterodactyls made heaven their home when they were created on the fifth day. The fourth day of creation saw the sun launch his first footrace across the heavens—over two million such races later he is still going strong (although he has never improved his time). “Waters below” replace “waters above” through the ongoing miracle of evaporation; thunderstorms and blizzards enthusiastically return the favor, flooding the earth again and again and again and again, ad infinitum, keeping the earth’s tank topped off and her occupants happy (for the most part).

Among other things, God created the heavens (along with the rest of creation) to be our teachers, and mostly our teachers about the Creator Himself:

The heavens declared the glory of God;
And the firmament shows His handiwork.
Day unto day utters speech,
And night unto night reveals knowledge.
There is no speech nor language
Where their voice is not heard.
Their line has gone out through all the earth,
And their words to the end of the world.
(Psalm 19:1–4)

God the Son Himself came from heaven, and when He left, He ascended back into the heavens, accompanied by clouds and angels, after He rose from the dead. When He comes back at the Last Day, He will come from heaven. Jesus is in heaven right now, praying to God the Father in heaven for us; and our own prayers ascend to heaven where they are heard by God and from which the answers drop like rain upon our thirsty ground.

Hope and salvation, in other words, come from heaven. Morning sunshine, ministering angels, life-saving rains, even stars that announce Messiahs are all so many heavenly teachers proclaiming that our best and only hope comes from Heaven to Earth, and we are fools to look elsewhere.

“God, we give thanks for the heavens You have so masterfully created and given to us as a glorious gift: for sun, moon, and stars; for birds and rainbows; for thunderclouds and lightning; for sunsets and faraway galaxies. We give You thanks, and we pray You would give us eyes to see Your glory written in the skies, that we would be faithful to give You that glory and continual thanks and praise. We pray You would cause the sun to shine on us and the rain to fall on us as Your gifts of life to us, and we give You thanks above all for sending Jesus from heaven and for pouring out Your Holy Spirit from above that we might have eternal life. Through Jesus Christ our Lord we pray. Amen.”

Light of the World

“Then God said, ‘Let there be light’; and there was light. And God saw the light, that it was good; and God divided the light from the darkness. God called the light Day, and the darkness He called Night. So the evening and the morning were the first day.” (Genesis 1:3–5)

The world, as God made it, began in darkness. Then He commanded light for the world. God be thanked for light, that all the world can be enjoyed with our opened eyes.

Day begins with darkness, with “evening,” and morning light always follows. “Weeping may endure for a night,/But joy comes in the morning.” (Psalm 30:5) It is almost as if God recreates the world every day—the world is enshrouded in darkness, and then morning is commanded by God to take off the darkness and put on light for the day. We sleep every night in the darkness of shut eyes, and then God whispers us awake in the morning with new love. God be thanked for morning light, for new days, for new mercy from God every morning.

We are formed, created, in the darkness of our mothers’ wombs, where our world is covered in water. God commands the day of our birth, our eyes are opened, and light breaks in to reveal the new world as it truly is. God be thanked for birth-days, for our life in the light, for light to light up our lives.

Because of sin we are conceived in double-darkness; we are blind to the truth, wandering helplessly like pups with their eyes glued shut on the first day. But God the Word has been spoken into our lives, and Christ the Light of the world has come. Our eyes have been opened, and we have been born again into a world full of Light revealing all things as they truly are, as they were truly created to be. God be thanked for Jesus the Light of the World, for the eyes of faith, for the new creation.

Death is a darkness. Christ’s tomb was black as night. But light follows darkness, morning follows the night. Christ the Light of the World has risen from the dead, and eternal daylight—and laughter and love and an infinite number of newnesses—follows the brief darkness we are called on to endure. God be thanked for our everlasting life of light in Christ, for new day dawning, for hope spelled out in the creation of light.

“Lord God, we thank You this day for days filled with light, for a world filled with wonder, and for eyes to let it all in. Continually grant us the light of Christ, that we might see His glory and His goodness, the truth of His Word, the truth of the world in which we live, the truth about ourselves. You are the Light of the World! Wake us up, and shine one us! Grant us life through the light of Christ our Risen Savior, we pray in Christ’s name. Amen.”

Creature Thanks for Our Creator God

“In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was without form and void; and darkness was on the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters.” (Genesis 1:1 , 2)

Great God in heaven above, Creator of all things, Maker of heaven and earth: You are our Creator, and we will praise You. All things find their beginning and purpose in You alone, dear God, and so we give thanks.

We give You thanks this day for all things, for all things have come from Your hand. We give You thanks for making us with eyes to see sunsets, with ears to hear birdsong, with feet to feel our shoes come off. We give You thanks for the sunsets, the birds, and the shoes themselves.

We give You thanks for all things, for all that comes from Your hand is good. We give You thanks for destroying storms and for healing sunshine; we give You thanks for blistering droughts and for healing rains. We give You thanks for the crags of Scotland, for the rice fields of the Mississippi Delta, for the volcanoes of Japan.

We give You thanks for dogs and for hands to pet them, for tree bark and the cicada shells that grow on them, for bicycles and the brains that invented them. We give You thanks for earthworms and for the ants that eat them when they get lost on the driveway. We give You thanks even for mosquitoes, which fill some great purpose in Your glorious kingdom, and we give You thanks for the tongues with which to praise You for them.

Thank You, dear God, for not leaving the world “without form and void” but for filling it with all things good, true, and beautiful; thank You for shaping it in such a way as to reflect all of the wonders in Your own glory. Shape us, dear God; form us into the image of our Lord Jesus Christ. Fill us and cover us, dear heavenly Father, with Your own Holy Spirit, and produce within us goodness and purity and the delightful beauty of Your holiness. We pray in Christ’s name. Amen.