Stone #1: God is the Creator, I am the gardener!

Genesis 1:1
"In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth."

Genesis 1:27
"So God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them."

Isaiah 42:5
"Thus says God, the Lord, who created the heavens and stretched them out, who spread out the earth and what comes from it, who gives breath to the people on it, and spririt to those who walk on it."

I know you were probably expecting something more profound and theological, but almost everything else in our lives stems from this fundamental concept of origins and ownership. God created the world and everything in it. It is His world and His rules.

So, how does remembering this stone help us in our daily lives? If a person believes the world was not created by God, but spontaneously generated by eternal matter which evolved into living things and finally produced human beings; THEN there are no rules, no standards, no differentiation between good and evil. It's easy to live a life governed by evolution and materialsim because I make the rules as I go along.

However, if you believe that God created the earth and everything in it, then He gets to make the rules and determine the purpose of our lives.

So what was the first set of directions that God gave man in the garden?
Genesis 1:28
"And God said to them, Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air and over ever living thing that moves on the earth."

Nancy Pearcy (who co-wrote How Now Shall We Live with Chuck Colson and wrote Total Truth) states: "In Genesis, God gives what we might call the first job description: "Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it." The first phrase means to develp the social world: build families, churches, schools, cities, governments, laws. The second phrase means to harness the natural world: plant crops, build bridges, design computers, compose music, etc.

In other words, we are the gardeners of the world He created. And as the earth's caretakers he tells us "So,..., whatever you do, do all to the glory of God" (1 Cor 10:31). And if everything I do is for the glory of God, then it will have the right direction, the right purpose, and the right meaning.

So, tomorrow morning when you wake up, don't forget to grab your tools: there are plenty of weeds to remove, trees to prune, and plants to water. Sola deo Gloria!

Let us be captivated by His Truth and compelled to His Service

Troy