A CHRISTIAN’S VIEW OF CREATION

The only exclusive timeless spiritual being, Triune God, surrounded by spiritual creatures, angels who worship and serve God eternally, decided to create a species of physical beings, unique, humanity, in whom God would invest a divine similarity. A delicate feature. There would be affinity between God and humanity. To affect this plan, God created a universe of galaxies, and in one galaxy he made one planet suitable to human physical life. Humanity, with this divine resemblance, both genders, should enjoy Earth and wisely govern this jewel of a planet.  God was pleased with creation. Because God knows all things, ends from beginnings, even then God knew humanity would fail to maintain God’s likeness. Sin would interrupt the affinity God had with humanity. Sin changed humanity. Transience and Mortality. God’s penalty on sin. Still God loved this Earth full of people. God’s plan in eternity was to restore this Godlikeness, this affinity in humanity. Restoration would result from God’s greatest of all time demonstration of love. The death penalty would be paid. God determined to take on a human form to briefly reside on planet Earth, then die. God’s eternality would conquer death. Penalty served. Sin’s interruption arrested. God’s prerogative. The benefit to humanity, contingent on individual faith in the efficacy of God’s death. Plus, a promise. Eternal life with God for the believer. It worked. It works.

DEATH IS NO STRANGER TO ME

DEATH IS NO STRANGER TO ME

 

This is not a gloomy mindfulness. End of life is on my mind more frequently than it ever was in previous decades. The proximity of death is easily apparent to me, particularly because of my age.  I am 78 years old. Furthermore, the passing of close friends and acquaintances who are my contemporaries occurs with increased frequency. Two days ago another friend’s life on planet earth ended. She was four years older than me.  

I am no stranger to dying and death. At the age of 27 I began my work as a church pastor. For forty years one of my responsibilities was spending time with dying parishioners and residents of the community. I sat with families as their loved one weakened and I comforted them when the loved one died. Many who died were close personal friends. I had my own load of grief to manage. I officiated funerals within the churches that I pastored.  I lost count of how many hundreds of funerals that is. Death is not a stranger to me.

My grandparents and parents and most uncles and aunts and some cousins have died. We have been people of faith, not just any faith, but Christian faith. Early in my life and then through concentrated linguistic and theological investigation I confirmed for my own satisfaction that my faith rests on promise based on evidence. So I am content to trust that God was telling me the truth when he inspired writers to record that eternal life awaits those who trust that Jesus was divine and resided on earth for the purpose of atoning for human sin. I believe that Jesus’ own dying words to a dying convict promising him life in paradise was true, and is true still. What this comes down to is assurance and hope and peace. 

Yes, I have bought the whole meal deal. It’s a worldview that includes a future beyond life here. Not for one moment do I believe that it is easier or more intelligent to accept that life began spontaneously in some cell somewhere or through some cataclysmic celestial explosion. I rest my trust in a transcendent pre-existing God who created this remarkable universe and chose to fashion humanity in his image, and who has prepared something for us after this. I am unafraid and I am content.   

He Promised

A NEW LEARNING
An inadvertent visit to a website gave me a verse and a statement for the day. It reads as more than that – perhaps a worldview and a life motto.

May the one whom men did not crown,
the one whom men cannot dethrone, be
the foundation upon which we live and
breathe and understand our being.

Know therefore today, and take it to
your heart, that the LORD, He is God
in heaven above and on the earth below;
there is no other. Deuteronomy 4:39

Retirement issues fade substantially in view of Him. Solutions and answers are resident with Him. I come back to a loyalty by which I lived my career life – commitment to God and what He has said in His Word, the Bible. I revive my position of surrender since my Father knows best. Being a dependent is not undignified when one belongs to the King of kings who owns everything and has pledged to care for you forever.

Strange how over the course of time, a have-nothing undergraduate student who was grateful for anything that was above the base income and knew always that the Lord would provide what was needed, could become so independent as to worry about how to live on a little again. I return to my God who will supply all my needs according to His riches in glory. It’s not a platitude I don’t think. That’s His promise. I am choosing to rest in that today.