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Confusion Illusion

Confusion Illusion

As I write this, a group of 30 or so youth are heading to Cincinnati to visit the Ark and the Creation Museum. My initial prayer was that each of the youth attending (and adults) would have an appreciation for who God is and an even more firm belief that He created everything.

There is a lot of confusion in our world about who God is, and whether one being created everything. Not all schools are able to even teach the idea of creation so as to have kids explore the thought that one being created everything. Instead, kids (especially Christian kids) have to wade through theories that are taught as fact and wrestle (often times in silence) in their minds about what they really believe.

Let’s face it, when the majority believes one way, we tend to go along with it, because if most of the people believe it, perhaps it’s true.

I was listening to the BEMA podcast recently (I highly recommend it). And the podcast gives us a perspective on the Bible from a Jewish point of view. And his thoughts on Genesis chapter one were that we shouldn’t look at Genesis chapter one as a lab to try and prove something. Instead, we should look at Genesis chapter one from a bigger picture of who God is.

We talk about reading Scripture in context and we often forget to say that about Genesis. Genesis was written (most experts think) by Moses. He wasn’t alive at the time. God inspired Moses to write down what happened during creation and with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. The perspective we should read Genesis is from the perspective of a people being freed from slavery in Egypt.

If you were a slave in Egypt working seven days a week from sun up to sun down and now you are freed to go start a new life in a distant land and as you are on your journey to this new land, the leader (Moses) sits down and shares with you how the world began and who this God is that is rescuing you, what is the focus of Genesis one? It’s that the God that created the Heavens and the Earth is a God that wants to give you rest.

God is a God who wants you not to be identified by what you do, but who He made you to be. He made us in His image, to subdue the earth, and to fill the earth. And while work was something even Adam did, He wasn’t defined by it. In fact, God insisted that His creation rests on the seventh day after working hard for six days because that is who He made his people to be.

My prayer has changed. It is now for the 30-plus people going on this trip to Cincy to come away with a better appreciation for who God made them to be. That they would leave understanding they were made in the image of God, created to serve Him and to love Him. Andy B.