Let Me Introduce You
In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.
Genesis 1:1 (NIV)
This earth is a supernatural testimony. It's an irrefutable sign that there is but one God. The size, position, and angle of the earth is a scientific phenomenon. Even to this day, if we were but a few degrees closer to the sun, we would disintegrate and if we were a few degrees farther from the sun, we would freeze. The axis of the Earth is tilted at a perfect 23 degree angle. It's no mistake that it is, it allows equal global distribution to the ray of the sun making it possible for the entirety of the food chain on the earth to exist. What about the combination of nitrogen and oxygen in the atmosphere we breathe every day? Think about it for a moment. Every single day of your life, God makes sure that nitrogen and oxygen are mixed in the exact perfect combination. It doesn't happen on any other planet that way, but this one.
The moon controls the tides. It's like the hotel maid that cleans the oceans! Even the waves don't crash to the shore in vanity - the tides crashing to the shore drag impurities into the depths of the sea. It's almost like nature's constant recycling program!
It simply boggles the human mind to think that the stars will rotate with such exact precision. But it is true. It's as if we are all operating by an atomic clock that moves silently around the orbit.
The sun, the moon, the stars, all of these are like celestial evangelists above. They, in fact, circle the earth every 24 hours shouting in every language that there is a God. The heavens declare the glory of God and the earth shows forth his handiwork (Psalm 19:1). It's an eternal God who created heaven and earth, flung the stars in space and breathed into a handful of dirt until it became a human being. It's God who sits on the circle of the earth and measures the mountains in a scale and holds all seven seas in the palm of his hand. “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.”
This is what it means: there was nothing before God. There was no one before God. The writers of the Book of Genesis wanted the Israelites who were fighting to emerge from simply being a nomadic tribal community until they could become a nation state society. The writers wanted them to understand the very foundation, the bedrock, the platform of their identity and their existence, and it was this: Israel - you didn't get here on your own. You were created by God.
Get this wrong and everything else is wrong. God needs not to prove anything to us. We are the direct result of the creative expression of God. And here's what it means: our lives in terms of significance, impact, worth and value is based upon the trust and confidence of our faith.
