He Wanted to Teach Respect

I once picked up a book to read, it was a rather thick book with many chapters. It was clear to see that it would take several days to get through this book. Somehow, over time, I moved from reader, to a student of the book, and eventually teacher. Yet truth be told, any teacher that is truly a teacher is always a student of the subject they have chosen to teach, so then I am a student of the book.

The book challenged my thinking, made we question the preconceived ideas and traditions that I had grown up with. I grew up in a Christian home, having older but loving parents. They were Christians and so their Christian values naturally passed down from them to me. Yet the book stretched my thinking, made me look at things differently, challenged my beliefs and yes, even made me question God.

The book asks me to accept by faith things I cannot comprehend and to accept the fact that all things come from an all-powerful God that created mankind because He, God, wanted to spend time with them.

Right away, the book challenges me to believe the impossible by stating that the earth and all that is in it was created in 6 literal days. It also asks me to believe that for all but one thing of creation, God spoke it into existence and it happened and what is more, he asks me to believe it happened in six literal days mark by evening and morning. The evening representing, the dark part of the day while the morning represented the light part of the day. And that one thing that he did not speak into existence was Adam which means mankind, and this book asks me to believe that God came down and formed from the dust of this earth a being, which he then breathed the breath of life into and that formation in the shape of man became a living being, capable of all the things you and I can do and because it was before the fall, He could do more than we can.

But because this seems to great a feat for my finite mind to grasp, to grasp that a God could speak and in six literal days create out of nothingness the world filled with every imaginable life form filled with beauty and awe, I turned to science to explain what they themselves cannot fully comprehend. The Bible and science should really work together to explain the awesome power of God, yet they seem to be at odds with each other because we have failed to accept what we cannot understand from the Bible with faith.

Hebrews 11:1 “Now faith is the substances of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. For by it the elders obtained a good testimony. By faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that the things which are were not made of things which are visible.”

Being a student of the Bible, when Genesis 1:1 says “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” Although I cannot comprehend it, I by faith accept this to be true, for if I do not then the whole rest of the Bible fails to make any sense at all.

Genesis chapters 1 and 2 tell us that God is not only the creator, but sustainer of all life. He (Christ) is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For by Him all things were created that are in heaven and that are on earth. Visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers. All things were created through Him and for Him. And he is before all things, and in Him all things consist. And he is the head of the body, the church, who is the beginning, the first born from the dead, that in all things He may have preeminence. For it pleased the Father that in Him all the fullness should dwell Colossians 1:15-19.

What amazes me is that all created beings whether angels or you and me must become educated in the things of God, and yet God to some degree remains a mystery, not fully comprehendible to angels or mankind for how can a created being fully understand He who has created it. Here in lies the rub that has caused the Great Controversy, which we will explore more fully at a later time.

When God created the His Garden Home upon new planet earth He created it to share it with all mankind. Yet God designated for himself a special tree, a tree called the tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil as his own personal property. Through this tree, God desired to teach all mankind an amazing lesson, yet he desired to do it in a way that was totally different than what you and I have experienced during our time on earth since our birth.

Tomorrow we will explore more about this wonderful garden home and this tree that God set apart as His own and through it God hoped to teach respect, for without respect the world crumbles and falls, unable to sustain itself without the power of the one who created it.

I hope you will stop by on Mondays, Tuesdays, Thursdays and Fridays as we explore this subject of the Great Controversy and Who God Really is.

Blessings, Pastor Lester