12 THE UNIVERSE IS BORN F O O T ================================

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READING

12 THE UNIVERSE IS BORN

PRAY Lord God, thank you for your creative power and your enjoyment of beautiful things. Help me to meet you today and to worship you. today. —————————————————————– READ Genesis 1:1-2:4. —————————————————————– THINK What does this account teach about God? List five adjectives to describe God as pictured in this passage. —————————————————————– FOCUS Scientists debate about how and when the universe came into being. Most of us watch the experts on TV and are bemused. But the writer of Genesis 1 doesn’t go into long arguments. He makes one simple statement! ‘In the beginning … God created the universe’ (1). This account has a unique majesty. It is so simply told and yet its message is so deep. Read it again and feel its rhythm. GOD THE CREATOR. Here we meet a God who is already existing and uncreated. There is no attempt to explain him – he’s just there! Scientists and technologists are ingenious. But they work with existing materials. God formed the universe out of nothing. No one can imitate that! And when God set the world in orbit he did not abandon it. Even in all the chaos, he was there (2) watching, caring and enjoying. (Look at verses 4, 10, 12, 18, 21, 25, 31 to see how God felt about his world). The universe keeps going through God’s same creative energy (Hebrews 1:3). PEOPLE, THE CLIMAX OF CREATION. The narrative speeds to a climax. ‘All creatures great and small’ fill the sea, the air and the earth. But at the climax are the human beings. When God created human beings, what privileges and responsibilities did he give to them? —————————————————————— PRAY People are not just highly developed animals. They have the unique ability to hear God, to respond to him and to love him. What does this tell you about your own value to God? Thank him now. ==========