Day 4
THE GOD WHO CREATES
Revelation 1:8
‘I am the Alpha and the Omega’, says the Lord God, who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty.
Just this one short verse at the beginning of the last book in the Bible says so much about our God. This is the God who made everything, who reveals Himself, and saves us in the Lord Jesus Christ and who takes up residence by
His Holy Spirit in the lives of everyone who puts their faith in Jesus.
The New Testament was written in Greek. The first and last letters of the Greek alphabet, Alpha and Omega, used here as a description of God, reassure the Christians enduring Roman persecution that, whatever happens, God is in control and they are safe for time and eternity.
If we think back to the first book in the Bible, Genesis, the book of beginnings, we have a picture of God creating everything, including human beings made in His image. He entrusts to them the care of the garden He has made. Reminding us that our God is the Almighty One is something of a wakeup call. It is so easy for our faith to become just one tree in the forest of our lives rather than the Holy God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, being our foundation, our sustaining power, and our eternal home.
God loves to create and to re-create when things go wrong. When this happens, when our sin spoils and scars the world, our relationships with each other and our relationship with God, He already has a plan of salvation ready. It is a plan that will lead to the crucifixion, the resurrection and the glory of heaven for those who believe in His son, Jesus Christ.
The Anglican Communion Office.
An African proverb says: ‘If you want to sit under a shade in your old age, plant a tree now.’ Almighty God, who wants us to spend eternity with Him in the shade of the new heaven and earth He created has planted the tree in the shape of Jesus’ cross. By His Holy Spirit we are His new creation, and His desire is for everyone to share in that.
The current desire of so many people across the world to look after our world is a demonstration of what it means to be made in God’s image. We have a hunger to be gardeners even if we don’t know the Lord of the garden.
As we hold our five people before the Lord today, thank God for them and pray that their and our desire to look after God’s creation will lead us to know and love the one who made it.
Paul