The
first day
In the beginning: for us in
the beginning,
means faith. Without
faith we cannot comprehend or believe anything the Bible has to teach.
The first step of faith has to be the question, “where did God come
from?” As a child that was my ever burning question, the only
answer I
got was, “you have to believe and take it on faith.” Today the
answer
is still the same, FAITH.
In Heb 11 Paul defines faith by
the examples of the
great men of old
such as Abel, Enoch, Abraham, and so on. One of the best modern
time
explanations of faith is from a speaker who speaks to college students
around the world. Being asked, “what is faith?” He explained it
this
way, “Does your mother love you?” the response back was “yes.” He
then
asked, “How do you know?” Answer, “because she tells me she does and by
the way she exhibits, her love to me.” “Yes, but just because she says
so, does that make it true, or by her
actions or deeds, does that make
it true? No that does not prove anything, you must take it on
faith
that what she says and does is true, and you have to take it on faith
that she loves you. Not just because she's your mother. And I
will
guess the thought
never entered your mind to question her.”
The faith that our God asks for is
not any
different. God speaks
to us and shows us his love every day, but the question still looms “Is
there really a God? and where did He come from?” I think we
question
the reality of God because of the lack of understanding of who God
truly is. And that begs to ask the question, “How can we
understand
God and who He is?” For me the answer is simple, It takes a personal
relationship, the greater the relationship the greater the
knowledge of
God will be revealed to you.
Do you realize that once we have the
faith
thing down, and
understand it, and live it, we can do exactly what Jesus said “I tell
you the truth, anyone who has faith in me will do what I have been
doing. He will do even greater things than these, because I am
going
to the Father.” (John 14:12) I don’t think Jesus said this as a
filler
in the Bible or to say something to make us feel good or important. He
really meant what he said--our faith is the problem. I'm not
saying
this as a health
and wealth teaching because I'm not a health and
wealth teacher, but I do stand on the promise that God has made to us.
It is by our lack of belief or faith that we do not
receive. Now
going back to Paul in Heb 11:1, he says “Now faith is being sure of
what we hope for and certain of what we do not see.”
To accept and believe anything in
the Bible, it is
going to take
faith, true faith, an act of faith. Talk is cheap, it is easy to
say,
“I’ve got faith,” but do you? When it really comes down to it, do we
really? Do we have the faith to raise the dead, or heal the lame,
or
the sick, or even to save the lost? Do we really have faith?
To me it is easier to believe the
creation story
than it is to
believe I could raise the dead, and I think the reason is that it is
easier to believe that I was created rather than evolved from a spec of
slime, and that is our only two choices. The “big bang” theory,
“God said it,
Bang it was done”
After having the faith issue under
our belts, we can
go on with the
creation of all things. The questions are still there, and it is
still
a faith thing.
Now the earth was formless and
empty. Formless
I can understand
but I have a little trouble with the empty part. Looking up the
definition of empty, there are some interesting definitions.
(Without;
contains nothing; not occupied or inhabited; not pregnant; lacking
reality, substance, or value) for some reason the pregnant description
jumped out at me, and second, was the lacking reality, substance, or
value. A thing to ponder, in today's environment! Doesn't
it seem our
culture is going back to the empty state, lacking reality substance and
value?
Gen 1: 2 goes on to say the spirit
of God was
hovering over the
water, over the water tells me that there was a void over the water,
otherwise it would have to be, “God was in the water.” Now we
know
that water was everywhere but being formless? What contained the
water?
Being without form? How far did the water stretch? How deep
could it
be? Clearly the human mind is not capable of even stretching that
far.
This tells me that we will never figure God out, so why try?
(that's
another teaching) God said “let there be Light,” and there was,
then
He separated the darkness from the light, the first day. God
spoke,
just a word. The power of
the word, how many things have we
created or
spoke into existence just by our words? Maybe something from
gossip,
or something from a word of encouragement, how about guilt, shame, blessings,
or curses (again another study). That's all it took
for God, a
word to create everything we see, feel, smell, and taste. We too can
build something great or tear something down with just one word.
We see now that God started creation
from darkness
to light to
evening to morning, a whole 24 hour cycle, and He was pleased.
Obviously, God does not work in
the limits of our
scientific
establishment, if so, He would know that light cannot be, without the
sun or the moon or the stars, but God did just that. Could this
be
what Paul was saying (in part of course) in 1 Co 1:27 “God chooses the
foolish things of the world to shame the wise.” My guess would
be,
this could apply. But we seem not to stop trying to figure God
out.
What would it take for you to have
the faith of a
mustard seed? We
see miracles all around us today but yet it takes so much to
believe.
I would like to challenge each of us to go out and try out the act of
faith that Jesus has promised us.