Tag: creation

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Psalms

The Creator and his creation

Psalms

And so we come to the end of Book IV of the Psalms (actually it ends with Psalm 106, but we’ve already covered 105 and 106 earlier).

Whether David is the author of this psalm or not is unknown, but it does start the same way as Psalm 103.

Praise the Lord, my soul. (Psalm 104:1)

But whereas in the previous psalm, David praised God for his love and mercy, here the psalmist praises him for his creation. And as he looks at creation he marvels at the awesomeness of God, singing,

Lord my God, you are very great;
you are clothed with splendor and majesty.

The Lord wraps himself in light as with a garment. (1–2)

As I read this, I can’t help but think of John’s words when he said,

God is light; in him there is no darkness at all. (1 John 1:5)

In other words, he is holy. And so in the light, we see glimpses of his glory and his holiness.

The psalmist then marvels at the night sky, and how God stretches out the heavens, and as high as they are, they are but the foundation of his dwelling place, and the clouds are but his chariot.

Verse 4 as originally written seems to refer to how even the wind and the lightning are his messengers and servants. They proclaim his glory and do his will.

In the book of Hebrews, the writer uses this verse to talk about angels, and says they are merely God’s servants, as are the wind and fire, compared with Jesus who is uniquely the Son of God.

He then basically relates the Genesis account: how God brought about dry land, created the plants, trees, and the animals; how he created the times, days, and seasons; how he provides food for all creation, and gives it its very life.

Having recounted all these things, the psalmist extols his creator, singing,

How many are your works, Lord!
In wisdom you made them all;
the earth is full of your creatures.

There is the sea, vast and spacious,
teeming with creatures beyond number—
living things both large and small. (24–25)

Toward the end of the psalm he sings further,

May the glory of the Lord endure forever;
may the Lord rejoice in his works—
he who looks at the earth, and it trembles,
who touches the mountains, and they smoke. (31–32)

He then concludes by singing,

I will sing to the Lord all my life;
I will sing praise to my God as long as I live.

May my meditation be pleasing to him,
as I rejoice in the Lord. (33–34)

When it comes down to it, that is what we need to remember from this psalm. Because he is our Creator, he is worthy of our praise.

And so every day, we ought to praise him not only with our words, but with our thoughts and actions as well.

For all who fail to do so will perish. (35a)

So as the psalmist wrote,

Praise the Lord, my soul.
Praise the Lord. (35b)

Categories
Psalms

How God reveals himself

Psalms

Psalm 19 is another one of my favorite psalms and it powerfully shows how God reveals himself to us.

First, David shows us how God reveals himself through creation. He sang,

The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands. Day after day they pour forth speech; night after night they display knowledge.

There is no speech or language where their voice is not heard. Their voice goes out into all the earth, their words to the ends of the world. (Psalm 19:1–4)

I think this passage is primarily what Paul was thinking of when he wrote,

What may be known about God is plain to [all], because God has made it plain to them.

For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities — his eternal power and divine nature — have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse. (Romans 1:19–20)

Sometimes people ask, “What will happen to those who have never heard about God? Will God judge them too, when they’ve never even heard the name of Christ?”

The answer to this is, yes they will be judged, but not on the basis of never hearing about Christ.

They’ll be judged on the basis that when they looked at creation, they knew in their hearts that it couldn’t have been an accident, nor could it have been created by the idols made by their own hands. And yet they rejected that knowledge.

When people reject the knowledge that God gives them, he is under no obligation to give them any more.

If he chooses to do so, it’s purely a matter of grace, not of some right to knowledge that we have.

(Actually, any knowledge of himself that God gives to us is purely a matter of grace, anyway).

I will say, however, that if a person, say in Africa, who has never heard the gospel looks up at the sky and says, “I didn’t make this world. No one I know could have made this. It’s impossible that the things I created with my own hands have made this. Whoever you are that made all this, please show yourself to me,” that God will respond one way or another.

Why? Because it is his desire that all be saved. (1 Timothy 2:4)

If you have any doubts about that, just look at the story of Cornelius in Acts 10.

He knew nothing of his need for Christ. Yet because he acted on the knowledge that he did have, God reached down to him and gave him the knowledge of Jesus that he needed for salvation.

God reveals himself to us through creation, but he also reveals himself through his Word. And just as with creation, people need to choose to believe his word or reject it.

We can either say that it’s perfect and trustworthy, or that it’s not. (Psalm 19:7)

We can either say it’s right, or that it’s not. (Psalm 19:8)

We can believe it gives joy and light to our lives, or that it doesn’t. (Psalm 19:8)

David, of course, chose to believe the former. Many others do not. But how we view God’s Word shapes our view of God for the good or bad. And if we reject his Word, then we come out with a distorted view of who God really is.

But when we see God for who he is, we love him, and want to please him as David did. And so David closes this psalm with a prayer, saying,

Who can discern his errors? Forgive my hidden faults.

Keep your servant also from willful sins; may they not rule over me. Then will I be blameless, innocent of great transgression.

May the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be pleasing in your sight, O LORD, my Rock and my Redeemer. (Psalm 19:12–14)

Categories
Genesis

In the beginning, God…

Hmm…I think I said earlier that this wouldn’t be a verse-by-verse commentary. Yet here I am, and I can’t get past the first four words. But I have to say that those words brought me to a complete stop as soon as I read them.

In the beginning, God… (Genesis 1:1)

Why do these words stop me short? I think they’re a reminder to me that everything starts with God. If we want to find meaning in life, it all starts with God. If we want to find true satisfaction in life, it all starts with God.

Yet so many people’s starting point is not in him, but in themselves. They’re always thinking about “How do I make my life work?” “How can I be happy?”

And they bounce from one thing to another, trying to find something that brings satisfaction, but they can never find it because their focus was wrong from the very beginning.

As one writer has put it, “It (your life) is not about you.” You are not the center of the storybook. You are not the lead character. But as long as we think that way, all we’ll find is what King Solomon found in the book of Ecclesiastes: meaninglessness.

Meaningless! Meaningless…Utterly meaningless! Everything is meaningless. (Ecclesiastes 1:2)

Why? Because the starting point of everything is God. God is Life. And if from the start, you walk away from the one who is Life, your life becomes an empty shell. Utterly meaningless.

I have to think, though, is God the beginning with me? As I live my life every day, does my day start and end with God? For that matter, is he a part of everything in my life? Or do I kind of leave him out of parts of my life.

It’s so easy to do, I must admit. I suppose it’s one of the problems when dealing with an invisible God. He can be so easy to ignore.

Far too often, I’ve found that things like sports, or books, or the internet have come to dominate my day.

But as Solomon pointed out, even if we spend our time on good things, learning things, working, or just enjoying the life God’s given us, they all become empty if we leave God out of them. These are the gifts God has given us.

Yet the gifts are temporary. The Giver is eternal. That’s why the gifts can never satisfy for very long. The gifts God gives us on this earth should never be the focus of our lives. Our focus should be on the Giver of the gifts.

And if we put our focus on the Giver of the gifts, then we’ll find meaning in everything we do. We’ll find something that truly satisfies. Because he is forever.