In the Beginning

 

“In the beginning, God.”  These are the first four words of Genesis 1, and thus of the entire Bible.  “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.”  The writer makes absolutely no attempt to explain the existence of God.  He makes no attempt to detail just how God arrived on the scene.  He spends no effort to interpret how God got here, only that He was here.  No explanations.  No arguments.  No apologetics.  No interpretations.  No suggestions.  He offers only a short, simple statement of fact.  And faith.  And God was glorified.

 

Verse two of the first chapter of the Bible tells us that the earth was “formless and empty.”  The process of creation had not yet begun.  The God of the universe had yet to speak a word.  Nothingness was everywhere!  Darkness ruled “over the surface of the deep.”  All that was present, prior to creation, was the “Spirit of God.”  The Holy Trinity fellowshipped temporarily in the absolute aloneness that only nothingness can provide.  And God was glorified.

 

Considering this lack of specifics, the writer then goes on at some length, comparatively, to illustrate the details of creation.  “In the beginning, God created…”  On day one, God created light.  The process begins.  On day two, He created the sky.  The process picks up speed.  On day three, He created the land, the seas, and plants and trees.  The process continues to build.  On day four, God made the sun, the moon, and the stars.  Creation gains momentum!  On day five, He formed the birds and all the living creatures of the sea.  On the sixth day, God brought the living creatures of the earth and the wild animals to life.  The crescendo of creation intensifies.  As the final act of creation, God fashions man, “in his own image.”  The God of the universe had created an image in the very likeness of Himself!  “Male and female he created them.”  He created this being in two distinct persons, each one bearing His righteous and holy likeness.  He blesses them.  He commissions them.  He empowers them with authority.  And then God declares His creation “very good.”  It’s as if God took a step back and said, “Awesome!”  In fact, what God had done was so good, that He decided to take the next day off!  And God was glorified.

 

Creation was finished.  The light shone.  The sky glistened.  The land bore crops and the trees bore fruit.  The sun, moon, and stars all shimmered gloriously.  The birds flew and the creatures of the sea swam.  The living creatures of the earth roamed, and mankind ruled.  Indeed, creation was finished.  Man enjoyed the unbroken presence of God as his image reflected the glorious image of the One after whom it had been fashioned.  All of creation fulfilled the purpose for which it had been created.  And God was glorified.

 

How We Got from There to Here

 

Leaving the Garden of Eden, we turn our focus to several thousand years down the road to another Garden; this one called Gethsemane.  In this Garden, God Himself in the person of Jesus Christ, prays for strength that He might fulfill the purpose for which He was sent to this earth.  That purpose drives Him to a total obedience and a radical selflessness.  That purpose compels Him to an unwavering faith as He stares the most excruciating death a man can die, squarely in the face.  That purpose takes absolute precedence over Jesus’ feelings of desperately wanting to find some other way to accomplish His purpose.  That purpose drives Jesus to the point of absolute surrender to His Father’s will.  His purpose drives Him to the cross and ultimately, to His death.

 

The Garden of Gethsemane was necessary because of what took place in the Garden of Eden, and in the garden of your heart and my heart.  Adam and Eve, mankind, you and I, decided that we would rather do things our way.  We decided that we knew more than God knew and that we had a better plan for how things should be.  It was in the Garden of Eden, in the Kingdom of God, that Adam and Eve first set up their own kingdoms, the Kingdom of Self.  You and I did the same at the first opportunity that we had.  And this Kingdom of Self is what keeps us from experiencing the Kingdom of God as we were meant to experience it.  This Kingdom of Self keeps us from knowing God as we were designed to know Him.  It keeps us from loving others as we were intended to love them.  It keeps us from laying down our lives, like the One who laid down His life for us.  Our individual Kingdoms of Self flourish with amazing abundance.

 

We would like to think that we would have done it differently, that we would never have tasted the forbidden fruit.  We would like to think that we would have been faithful, that we could have resisted temptation’s call to our hearts.  We would like to think that we wouldn’t have tarried at the tree pondering the serpent’s scheme.  We would like to think that we would have run into our Father’s presence, that at the moment of temptation, our minds would have been clear, that our hearts would have been pure, and that our souls would have been strong.  

 

But we deceive ourselves.  Most of us probably only have to look back a day or two to find a time when our minds were clouded, our hearts were divided, and our souls were weak.  Maybe we don’t even have to go that far back.  The truth is that we could name countless times when we just didn’t come through like we would have liked to for our Creator; times when we chose to sacrifice the Kingdom of God for the Kingdom of Self; times where we not only did not run to God, but we ran as fast and as far away from Him as we could.  The truth is that had it been us in Genesis 1, it would have been us in Genesis 3.  Thus, the sin in the Garden of Eden finds its answer in the Savior of the Garden of Gethsemane.

 

Jesus left the garden with a Roman escort.  He made His way to prison, to trials, to mockings, to humiliations, and to beatings.  He willingly spoke not a word before His accusers so that you and I could go absolutely free; absolutely free for the crime of sinning against the all powerful and all holy Creator.  He took our punishment, our chastisement, and our dishonor.  He took our shame, our disgrace, and our humiliation.  He chose the cat of nine tails.  He chose to take the mocking.  He chose to suffer the embarrassment.  He willingly took the spit on His face, the crown of thorns in His head, the nails in His hands and feet, and the spear in His side.  He suffered.  He bled.  He died.  No one took His life.  He gave it away.  He poured it out as a living sacrifice.  He lifted it up as a fragrant offering.  He laid it down as an act of worship.  He set it aside as an act of obedience.  He gave it away as an act of service.  And God was glorified.

 

The Comet Principle of Life

 

From the moment a baby is born, he seems to have all the attention he could possibly want.  He is wrapped in a warm blanket.  He is embraced by a loving mother.  He is watched by all the excited relatives who have come for the special occasion.  Every cry is met with tenderness and oftentimes, a bottle of warm milk.  The only words he hears are soft and sweet.  A fresh, clean diaper follows every wet, dirty one.  His days are spent playing, eating, and napping.  Every face he sees smiles back at him.  The parents believe that nothing is too good for their baby, and he grows to believe that as well.  He understands that he is someone important; someone very special.  Life just couldn’t be any better.

 

Two years later, that same child is now at a part of his life that is often described as “terrible.”  He has reached the “terrible twos.”  The warm blankets are no longer constant, and neither is the attention.  The relatives no longer brood over him as they once did.  The tenderness may only be occasional and the words are not as soft and sweet as they once were.  Not all faces smile back anymore.  In fact, some seem to almost growl.  If he doesn’t get his way, he has learned that a good, strong, loud fit of rage might get the attention that he longs for.  Even the parents have now started this new practice they call “discipline.”  He now questions if he is still as important as he used to be.  Life could definitely be better.

 

Another twelve years down the road, this once cute little bundle of joy has now become a hyperactive, oversensitive, frustrated bundle of nerves and hormones.  The playful spirit of the child has been replaced by a selfish spirit so common in adolescents.  The tenderness has turned to aggression.  The joy only appears every once in a while.  He believes that the world should now revolve around him, and is willing to argue that point, if need be.  Now to get attention, the male teenager tries to become one of the guys.  The female teenager tries to get the guys attention too, but in a different kind of way.  They both keep their distance from their parents.  Parents just aren’t “cool” and they don’t understand the way things really are in the world of teenagers.  He now doubts that he is very important to anyone, at least anyone who really matters.  She is out to prove that she is important, regardless of what that involves.  Life seems meaningless.

 

Twenty years fly by, and now, the 34 year old man has been married for 11 years.  He has a job that he hates that sometimes requires 50 or more hours of work per week.  The once love of his life barely notices him as he drags in from work at 6 p.m.  The kids are in their room and never even knew that dad came home.  He sits down with a warmed up meal and reaches for the remote control.  No one asks about his day, and he doesn’t ask anyone about theirs.  He just hopes everyone will leave him alone for a couple of hours until he can shuffle down the hall to bed.  Life seems like a treadmill; extremely busy, but going nowhere. 

 

The now grown woman wonders where the time went.  The kids in whom she invested her life no longer give her the time of day.  Her husband, once so kind and caring, now seems to bark at her for no reason.  There is more romance in one hour of her TV shows than there is in one month of her life.  She wonders what happened as she asks herself if this is all there is to life.  She longs for the days gone by when life was beautiful and everything made sense.

 

Life can be like a comet streaking across the sky.  It comes in with a strong, vibrant flash, but goes out with a fading, weak fizzle.  Hopes and dreams creep into fears and uncertainties.  Meaning in life, which once was something eagerly anticipated becomes a dying memory of the past.  Just what is it that happens that seems to take us from center stage to the treadmill?  What is it that sucks the life out of us like a shop vac sucks the dust from a neglected antique?  And whatever it is that happens, can it be changed?  Can this process of vanilla blandness be reversed so that we live life as fully alive, wide awake in intimate fellowship with our God, with our family, and with our friends; the life that Jesus said He came to give us?

 

In the process of life, from a very early age, we begin to learn that we are not the center of attention.  We want to be the star of the show, but discover that we are just another fill in actor hoping for a spot in the play.  Our dreams of greatness quietly fade into the background of our lives.  Our hopes of one day affecting the world in a positive way have dwindled to just hoping we can make it to retirement. We’ve all seen too many people who determine their success in life by the quality of their retirement, or the size of house they live in, or the number of toys in the garage.  We no longer dream big dreams for God because we are afraid they will never come true.  We are sure they will never come true.  At this point, all we want is to be safe and secure.  Our dreams to make a difference have subsided into exasperations of contentment, apathy, and safety.

 

We settle for the hand that life has dealt us.  We fear taking risks, because we might lose the little that we have.  It’s not that we want what we have, we just don’t want to lose it.  There is no real meaning to our lives.  There is no real purpose.  There is no real passion.  There is no real excitement.  We live our lives constantly in search of our fifteen minutes of fame, but if the truth were known, we would settle for five.  It’s as if our hearts, our hopes, and our dreams, have all died.  Serving God has been reduced to going to church and being nice.  Gone are the dreams of affecting lives for the Kingdom of God.  Our own Kingdom of Self has long overpowered those defeated illusions.  It has become drastically and painfully obvious, that what was once our greatest fear has become our most certain reality; that indeed, it is not all about us!

 

Getting from Here to There Again

 

“You can’t go home again.”  That line from a famous movie reminds us that we can never return to the Garden of Eden.  And while that is true, what if we could find a renewed life in His presence?  What if we could discover a reason to seek out that intimate fellowship once again?  What if we could discover a way to resist living for the Kingdom of Self?  What if we could uncover new ways of living for the Kingdom of God?  What if we could find a new Garden, this one in our hearts where daily, we invited the King of Kings to come and dwell, and rule, and reign?  And what if we could walk in a restored relationship with Him where we sought to fulfill the original purpose for which we were made?  What if as we sought to live for the glory of God, we found that God had designed us in such a way that we received the greatest joy and happiness in our lives as we strove to reflect His image and reveal His glory?  In other words, if our happiness and joy depended upon how well we reflected His glory?  Or in other words again, that our meaning in life came from how well we fulfilled the purpose for which we had been made?  Wouldn’t God be glorified?

 

Becoming Myself

 

It would be a rare occasion indeed for us to think the thought of “becoming myself.”  Yet, it was Soren Kierkegaard, a Danish philosopher who died in 1855 who said, “With God’s help, I am becoming myself.”  Kierkegaard was a rare breed who sought to help the church find its way back to the true gospel.  He recognized the intrinsic value of the process of a person seeking to become the person that God had created him to be.  He recognized that without “God’s help,” becoming oneself, and fulfilling the purpose for which he was made, would be impossible, but that with God’s help, one could become the “myself” that God had created him to be.  And that would glorify God.

 

That statement very aptly conveys the essential element of what is needed in the life of today’s believer.  We desperately need to become “ourselves,” that is, to become the person that God has created us to be.  This becoming is a process and can only be apprehended as we learn to peel back and put away the swollen egos so filled with selfishness, and allow the Almighty God to invade our lives and our spirits with His redeeming arm of grace and His restoring hand of truth.  This process is not to be rushed, nor can it be.  Indeed, it involves a passionate faith, a determined heart, an empowered will, and a steadfast perseverance.  The road is long and tough, filled with obstacles and detours, but the goal is more promising than any we have ever pursued before.  The goal is worth pursuing; even worth fighting for.

 

Too often, we believers practice what can only be called “Christian envy.”  We look at the lives of others and wish that we were the ones whom God had chosen to bless with certain gifts or abilities.  We wish that we could be used in ways that God is using someone else.  This envy, even though directed at godly characteristics, is anything but Christian.  In wishing to have other’s gifts, we forsake the task of becoming ourselves and we pity ourselves because we do not measure up to other believers that we know.  Discouragement seizes our hearts and doubt fills our minds.  When this happens, we cannot help but lose sight of who God has called us to become.  Our envy and self pity hides the glory of God’s purpose in our lives and we, and the kingdom of God, are the losers because of it.  God has not called you to become anyone other than yourself.  There is enough challenge in that statement alone to keep you and I busy for the rest of our lives.  God has called you to be you!  God has gifted you to be you!  God has equipped you to be you!  God has designed you to be you!  And God has waited for you to become the you that He has destined for you to become!  And God will be glorified.

 

The simple truth is that unless we become ourselves, unless we become the people that He has designed us to become, unless we lay aside the Kingdom of Self and passionately pursue the Kingdom of God, we shall never know the ultimate pleasures of a relationship lived in God’s presence, at least on this side of heaven.  Neither shall we know the full extent of His plans and purpose for our lives.  Also, if we do not become what God has called us to become, then there are others, with whom we are destined to cross paths, others who are not yet themselves, who may never know of the redeeming gospel of grace.  Someone else becoming themself may well depend upon how well you become yourself and how obedient you are to fulfilling your life’s purpose.  And God will be glorified.

 

Life’s Two Shaping Questions

 

If we were to search all of the seven continents, and all of the hundred plus countries, and all of the thousand or so people groups throughout the world, we would find that each person, from each group, in each country, on each continent, would have basically the same two questions shaping the journeys of their lives: “Who am I?” and “Why am I here?”  These two questions are a significant part of “becoming myself.”  How we answer these two questions will indelibly shape the person we become.  The answers will impact our hearts, our characters, our personalities, and our ministries, not to mention our families and our destinies.  The answers will lead us into life as we pursue the paths that God has chosen for us to walk.  The answers will call our hearts away from a life spent on building one’s own Kingdom of Self and towards a passionate life of authentic Christianity and building the Kingdom of God so that other lives are impacted in a Christlike manner.

 

There may be some who argue that we shouldn’t waste the time to ask these questions.  They would say that we should just simply get to the business of being God’s people to the lost and hurting of this world.  The world is in such pain, that it doesn’t matter where one starts to meet its needs.  Just get started, would be their point.  Just do something!

 

But there are a few problems with that approach.  First, it ignores the fact that the Bible teaches us that God has a purpose for our lives.  Secondly, it ignores the fact that God has created each one of us differently with different gifts, passions, and abilities.  And thirdly, it ignores the principle of not wasting the seed that God has sown in us as individuals.  That is, because we are created differently, we will function more effectively when we are functioning where God has called us doing what He has called us to do.  Can a twin-engine aircraft run or fly with only one engine?  Sure, but who would want to be on it?  Can a car drive with a flat tire?  Absolutely, but not very well.  Can a person serve without understanding God’s purpose for his life?  Of course, but not as effectively as he can when he does understand it.

 

So it is well worth our time to ask these questions so that we may more effectively fulfill the purpose for which we were made.  The first question has to do with one’s nature.  The second has to do with one’s purpose.  The first deals with “being” itself.  The second deals with “doing,” or at least we think it does.  The first with, “Where did I come from?”  The second with, “Where am I going?”  The first one is marked with an element of introspection.  The second one with an element of expectation.  The first with my nature.  The second with my purpose. 

 

While we can only assume that all people everywhere may struggle with these two questions from time to time, we can be reasonably certain that at least, here in the United States, each and every person who sincerely longs to become a better follower of the One who died for them does indeed wrestle with these two questions.  Our understanding of the answers of these questions will, in large part, determine the paths that our lives will pursue from this point onward.  So for the Christian, biblical answers are not only desired, they are required, for it is these answers that will set our course and ultimately, determine our success, not as the world defines success, but as God defines success.  God longs to be glorified.

 

It’s Time to GET REAL!

 

There is no doubt about it; society and the influences around us shape the person whom we become.  What is so sad is the extent at which this statement is true.  Not only does it shape us, but, more often than not, it squeezes us into its mold so that there is almost no room for the Spirit of God to enter into and take over the whole process and the worst part of it all is that we do not even understand that this has happened.  At some point, usually early on, we believe that society sets the standard for what a normal, well-adjusted Christian should look like.  We decide that in order to fit in with our culture, we must adopt its standards and values and adapt to its methods and practices.  We fail to recognize that in so doing, we give away our hearts.  That is why the writer of Proverbs 4:23 writes, “Above all else, guard your heart, for it is the wellspring of life.”  Above all else!  He knew that our hearts give birth to our lives, and our lives protect our hearts.

 

It’s no wonder then, that the believer and non-believer alike begin to ask the question, “Who am I?”  With so much chaos, disorder, and contradiction in philosophies from this world striving for our attention, who wouldn’t, at some point, become confused and overwhelmed by the vast array of solutions to life’s questions that this off track, selfish, dysfunctional world offers?  As Paul writes, “Again, if the trumpet does not sound a clear call, who will get ready for battle?”  There is nothing clear in this world’s call to our hearts except the statement, “You are your own god.” Believers all over this land are confused and unable to prepare for their own personal battles in life because they are listening to the false trumpet of a society, and yes, sometimes a church, that promotes self above God, money above love, hoarding above sacrificing, power above humility, and recognition above selflessness.  The false trumpet of the American society calls us not to righteousness, but to selfishness; not to sacrifice, but to indulgence.  Is it any wonder that so many Christians, and yes again, so many churches, look more American than biblical in their values?  If the church is not the light that God has designed her and called her to be in this day, in this society, then this certainly must be a chief reason for it; that we, as the church, and as believers, are listening to a false trumpet.

 

In reality, what we have then, is an unhealthy, needy, weak Christian looking to a depraved, selfish, calloused society for how he should become a strong, vibrant, passionate believer who lives a faithful, holy, sacrificial life which honors a sinless, pure, awesome God.  There is only one thing we can say to that equation: FAT CHANCE!  Or in other words, GET REAL!

 

And GETTING REAL, or in other words; becoming ourselves, or in other words; becoming the me that God has created me to be, is what this book is all about!

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