Creation and Spirt

Creation and Spirit

by Pastor Walt Scott, Let Go and Soar Ministries

March 10, 2015

Genesis 1:1-2

¹In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. ²Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.

Genesis 2:21-24

²¹So the Lord God caused the man to fall into a deep sleep; and while he was sleeping, he took one of the man's ribs and then closed up the place with flesh. ²²The the Lord God made a woman from the rib he had taken out of the man, and he brought her to the man.

God asked me to ask him, “Why, and for what purpose, what creation?” This question just came in to my mind. I wasn't thinking about anything related to it. After this question entered my mind, my initial response was, “Yes, why did God feel that it was necessary to initiate and complete the creation process?” I think that God desired me to ask this un-asked question that was probably wandering through my mind now and then. Was this six day creation event really six days? Probably in God's timing this event could have had a different time line. God's ways and time are not ours.

Isaiah 55:8-9

⁸”For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,” declares the Lord. ⁹”As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.

With the Holy Spirit's help I came to the conclusion that, because God is love, he wanted to express his love. This earth, the creation that we enjoy, is for us. He created us to have relationship with him and to mutually share and show love. He created us in his image to enjoy and appreciate his c reation and to acknowledge him and give him the glory.

Genesis 5:1-2

¹This is the written account of Adam's family line. When God created mankind, he made them in the likeness of God. ²He created them male and female and blessed them. And he named them “Mankind” when they were created.

Considering and realizing that time, as we measure it, is not necessarily God's time, if we will admit it, we would honestly have to agree that we have no idea how, or even if God measures time. There isn't time in eternity.

Deuteronomy 29:29

²⁹The secret things belong to the Lord our God, but the things revealed belong to us and to our children forever, that we may follow all the words of this law.

God's creation is relatively easy to explain if we observe it in that context. Whether it be the big bang theory or any other. Creation took a period of time. How long, and in what form is irrelevant. It is finished and God may be still resting on the seventh day. Only God's word is the relevant path to truth.

Hebrews 4:12-13

¹²For the word of God is alive and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart. ¹³Nothing in all creation is hidden from God's sight. Everything is uncovered and laid bare before the eyes of him to whom we must give account.

God asked me to write about an experience from my youth on the farm I grew up on in Iowa. The memory is very clear. I am not sure exactly how it is applicable to the question of creation, except possibly to support or enhance the realization and truth of his creation. Here is the event that I remember.

The farm I grew up on was beautiful and we raised almost everything we ate. I had two sisters and one brother and we were each other's playmates almost all the time. My brother and I spent almost all of our free time together, oftentimes doing things we shouldn't. Our farm was a triangle shape with rolling hills on each side with a valley in the middle, and sloping hills of about 30^o to 40^o on each side of the valley. My brother and I were between ten and 14 years old at this time. One day my brother and I were lying on our backs on this hill, just staring up at the blue sky and clouds passing by, completely silent. The earth made a connection with me, and I could feel it move and breathe, like something alive and intelligent. I felt it was trying, and succeeding, to communicate with me. I could also sense the earth's rotation. It was an awesome experience and I didn't want it to end. I believe now that God was speaking to me through his creation. I have never been able to duplicate it since.

To believe in creation is to believe in God. This, for reasons I find difficult to understand, is hard for many people to believe. Every reason or excuse is easy to explain; misunderstanding, misinterpretation or unproven.

Romans 1:20

¹For since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse.

Science has only unverifiable theories. We have the story of creation in the Bible. We have a choice to make, which requires a decision and a commitment on our part.

Romans 8:18-25

¹⁸I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us. ¹⁹For the creation waits in eager expectation for the children of God to be revealed. ²⁰For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope ²¹that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the freedom and glory of the children of God. ²²We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. ²³Not only so, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption to sonship, the redemption of our bodies. ²⁴For in this hope we were saved. But hope that is seen is no hope at all. Who hopes for what they already have? ²⁵But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently.

When our natural bodies give out our spirit will still exist. This spirit has to go somewhere. Our choices are limited. Heaven or hell. With our heavenly Father for eternity in heaven, or forever separated from the Father in a desolate wasteland of eternal suffering.

So we know what God's part was in the creation process, but who and what was Jesus in relation to creation?

John 1:1-5

¹In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. ²He was with God in the beginning. ³Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. ⁴In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind. ⁵The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.

Colossians 1:15-20

¹⁵The Son is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. ¹⁶For in him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things have been created through him and for him. ¹⁷He is before all things, and in him all things hold together. ¹⁸And he is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning and the firstborn from among the dead, so that in everything he might have the supremacy. ¹⁹For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, ²⁰and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross.

God's Spirit was hovering over the earth since creation and has never left. What are some of the things scripture says about God's Spirit?

John 6:63

⁶³The Spirit gives life; the flesh counts for nothing. The words I have spoken to you—they are full of the Spirit and life.

2 Corinthians 1:20-22

²⁰For no matter how many promises God has made, they are “Yes” in Christ. And so through him the “Amen” is spoken by us to the glory of God. ²¹Now it is God who makes both us and you stand firm in Christ. He anointed us, ²²set his seal of ownership on us, and put his Spirit in our hearts as a deposit, guaranteeing what is to come.

1 Corinthians 2:6-16

⁶We do, however, speak a message of wisdom among the mature, but not the wisdom of this age or of the rulers of this age, who are coming to nothing. ⁷No, we declare God's wisdom, a mystery that has been hidden and that God destined for our glory before time began. ⁸None of the rulers of this age understood it, for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. ⁹However, as it is written: “What no eye has seen, what no ear has heard, and what no human mind has conceived” --the things God has prepared for those who love him—¹⁰these are the things God has revealed to us by his Spirit. The Spirit searches all things, even the deep things of God. ¹¹For who knows a person's thoughts except their own spirit within them? In the same way no one knows the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God. ¹²What we have received is not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, so that we may understand what God has freely given us. ¹³This is what we speak, not in words taught us by human wisdom but in words taught by the Spirit, explaining spiritual realities with Spirit-taught words.¹⁴The person without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God but considers them foolishness, and cannot understand them because they are discerned only through the Spirit. ¹⁵The person with the Spirit makes judgments about all things, but such a person is not subject to merely human judgments, ¹⁶for, “Who has known the mind of the Lord so as to instruct him?” But we have the mind of Christ.

Romans 8:5-11

⁵Those who live according to the flesh have their minds set on what the flesh desires; but those who live in accordance with the Spirit have their minds set on what the Spirit desires. ⁶The mind governed by the flesh is death, but the mind governed by the Spirit is life and peace. ⁷The mind governed by the flesh is hostile to God; it does not submit to God's law, nor can it do so. ⁸Those who are in the realm of the flesh cannot please God. ⁹You, however, are not in the realm of the flesh but are in the realm of the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God lives in you. And if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, they do not belong to Christ. ¹⁰But if Christ is in you, then even through your body is subject to death because of sin, the Spirit gives life because of righteousness. ¹¹And if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies because of his Spirit who lives in you.

Luke 23:46

⁴⁶Jesus called out with a loud voice, “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit.” When he had said this, he breathed his last.

Psalm 31:5

⁵Into your hands I commit my spirit; deliver me, Lord, my faithful God.

Joel 2:28-32

²⁸”And afterward, I will pour out my Spirit on all people. Your sons and daughters will prophesy, your old men will dream dreams, your young men will see visions. ²⁹Even on my servants, both men and women, I will pour out my Spirit in those days. ³⁰I will show wonders in the heavens and on the earth, blood and fire and billows of smoke. ³¹The sun will be turned to darkness and the moon to blood before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord. ³²And everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved; for on Mount Zion and in Jerusalem there will be deliverance, as the Lord has said, even among the survivors whom the Lord calls.