by mom’s toolbox

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This has been an interesting week in my reading of the Bible in 90 Days.  I’m writing on Day 4.  By Friday, I’ll be done with Genesis!  I should add that I’m reading the chronological version, not the cover-to-cover version.  I hope to give weekly updates on Wednesdays.

Thanks Mom’s Toolbox for your work in organizing our small groups and bookmarks.

VIEW THE DRAMA OF CREATION!

It is interesting that in 4 days, I have read from the time that only our eternal GOD existed and the “earth” was dark and formless.  There was no time.  Then GOD spoke Light into existence!  If you try to picture it in your head, it is very dramatic indeed!

Those first 31 verses in Genesis, the first six days of Creation are so full of drama.  Can you just picture the “hand” of GOD touching, dividing, moving as He changed and created, touched and spoke this beautiful world into existence?  Astounding!

Yes, for the literalists in the group, I’m sure some of the writing is metaphorical, but isn’t it beautiful?  Isn’t it amazing to picture GOD’s hand touching the oceans and moving them to the areas when they need to be?  Of taking His fingers and shoving the land a bit and making the mighty mountains?  Of taking some dust and breathing into that form and making man…and later woman from Adam’s rib?

For this visual learner, it is an amazingly beautiful and stunningly majestic view.  Obviously, He isn’t limited by literal hands and fingers, so it didn’t happen exactly the way I describe, but He was intimately involved in every detail.  It was beautiful, flawless and stunning!

GOD’S CREATION IS GOOD!

And after the six days?  He looked around at all of it and it was good.  There were no weeds, no nuisance bugs, nothing that ate plants or irritated people.  There was nothing that made life in this beautiful world irritating.  Everything about His Creation was GOOD!

Relationships were delightful!  Adam and Eve walked with GOD in fellowship.  There were no feelings of shame between them.  Their relationship with GOD was good…so was their relationship with each other.

THE FALL: A CATASTROPHE!

By chapter 3, the Fall happened when they disobeyed the one command GOD gave them: You may eat of every tree except this one tree!  That one you can’t eat from.

So instead of enjoying all the beautiful things they had, they entertained the questions introduced by the Serpent, Satan.  Did GOD mean what He said?  Does GOD want what is best for you?  With the rhetorical answer being, “No, I’m sure He  didn’t mean what He said. He doesn’t want what is best for me.  He just wants to make me miserable.”

So sin entered our beautiful world.  Along with it came germs, pain, sorrow, grief, weeds, and all the things that make work unpleasant.  Something that was good became warped and twisted and unpleasant.

In the very next chapter, their son Cain kills his brother Abel. By chapter 6, the world was so corrupt that He needed to destroy it with a worldwide flood!  The warning that Adam and Eve would die spiritually on the day they ate of that fruit was no empty threat!

SPIRITUAL DEATH: AFFECTS EVERY ASPECT OF LIFE

And dying spiritually is no small thing!  The book of Genesis shows a very clear picture of what that looks like with some specific stories that frankly are x-rated and show depravity in extreme forms!

As we proceed through the first 12 chapters of Genesis through the four major events…what do you think they are? 

The rest of the book: chapters 13-50 talks about the four main characters of Genesis.  They are Who?  

WHO WERE THESE MEN?

The stories of these four men and their families show us normal, sinful people.  We can be encouraged.  GOD doesn’t choose perfect people, not even people who think they are perfect!  …especially not them!

• We see people who have faith, but also take matters into their own hands when it comes to having the promised son for Abraham.
• People who are liars as both Abraham and Isaac were regarding their beautiful wives who they said were their sisters when they were traveling…to save their own skins!
• People who were deceitful and conniving in the case of Jacob with his brother Esau and Jacob and Rebecca when they deceived Isaac to get what GOD had promised would be his.
• People who were so hateful to a brother that they wanted to murder him (Joseph) but settled for deceiving their father into thinking he was dead and sold him into slavery.
• There is more, but I will stop here.

THE LINE OF THE REDEEMER

It was through this line of people that GOD sent His Son, the Redeemer of the World.  Hard to imagine isn’t it?  I wonder what will be happening next…

Hang on for next week or join us for the reading at Mom’s Toolbox where you can read either the cover-to-cover reading or the chronological reading.

Since I’m reading the chronological version, I’ll spend a good part of next week in Job! Yes, that is chronologically the book after Genesis.