"And God said.... And God created ... and God saw that it was
good."
―Genesis 1:20-21 Suggested Reading: Genesis 1:20-23
Genesis 1 teaches us three additional
truths about God. First, God is perfect wisdom. His creation followed an astonishing
divine plan for an orderly universe and for the amazing phenomenon of human
life. Already in the first chapter, the Bible implies that God has a perfect
plan for the created order and for man as the crown of His creation.
When
you read Genesis 1, doesn't it seem absurd for us to think we know better than
God or have more wisdom than He? We who are foolish cannot judge the all-wise
God.
Second,
God is perfect goodness. Repeatedly,
Genesis 1 tells us that when God made something He "saw that it was good." All
that God made was perfectly good because He is perfect goodness. Nothing marred
the perfect beauty of God's creation. Everything He does is like that.
Even
today, when God's hand is upon our lives, what He does is perfectly good. So we
can believe that "all things work together for good to them that love God"
(Rom. 8:28a).
The
revelation of God's goodness ought to revolutionize our attitude toward
everything in life. It ought to change our thinking. It ought, above all, to
bring us with open hearts and arms to embrace His will rather than to suspect
it, scrutinize it, fear it, or want to change it.
Finally,
God is perfect power. His strength is
unlimited. Did you notice the ease of His work in Genesis 1? It is evident in the
refrain: "And God said . . . and it was so." God's very word is creative; by it
He called the heavens into being, He commanded the earth to be formed, and He
spoke and set the stars in their places.
We
need a healthy dose of the doctrine of creation in our lives to bring fiber
into our spiritual being, to strengthen our souls, and to help us understand that
the same God who commanded the light to shine out of darkness also desires to
shine in our hearts. God unites perfect wisdom and perfect goodness with
perfect power to produce overwhelmingly wonderful glory. That is the character
of our God.
Do
you see how God reveals Himself here in Genesis 1? What implications do these
revelations have for your life?