https://esv.literalword.com/?q=genesis+1
Observations from today’s readings and today’s S-WOD, Thursday, 31 October 2024:
Genesis 1:1 — In the beginning, God….
Here is a helpful overview of the book of Genesis:
https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/macarthur_john/bible-introductions/genesis-intro.cfm
Genesis 1:1 — In the beginning, God….
The first thing God wants you to know is that He is the Creator, and what He creates is good, a point repeated seven times (seven — the number of completeness and perfection) in chapter one. God created the physical world very intentionally, and He purposefully created us in His image to have dominion over the earth and to do His will, in unity with Him and each other. God could have created the earth and people to be self-sufficient, but he didn’t; he intentionally created a need for interdependence to promote relationships and love. Out of love, we were created by God who is love so we could love, which is our greatest commandment — “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself.” (Luke 10:27)
– 1 John 4:19 — We love because he first loved us.
– 1 John 4:7, 8, 10, 12, 16, 20 — Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love…. In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins…. No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God abides in us and his love is perfected in us…. So we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us. God is love, and whoever abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him…. If anyone says, “I love God,” and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen.
God is the Creator of the heavens and the earth, but He is also the creator of ethics (right and wrong), principles (how things really work), and truth (reality). When God placed mankind on earth, He gave them all that was good, and He gave them the fullness of life without pain, suffering, and death. However, as we will read this week, sin, destruction, strife, death, and separation from God entered the world when Adam and Eve chose to eat from the “tree of the knowledge of good and evil,” when they chose to decide for themselves what was right and wrong, how things really work, and what is true. In the first two chapters of the Bible, everything is good because there is no sin and there is unity among people with God. The rest of Bible records history – His Story – how from the beginning God had a plan to save us from our sins through His Son, Jesus; how He sent His Son to die on the Cross to pay for our sins; how He was resurrected and conquered death “for our justification” (Romans 4:25); and how one day Jesus will come again and restore all things, which is described in the last two chapters of the Bible where, once again, there is no sin on earth and not pain, sorrow, or death.
Genesis 1:26, 31 — Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion….” and behold, it was very good.
Watch this video on the image of God by Michael Reeves — https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tnLWicjZ5aY&t=1s
Humans were intended to have dominion (authority and power) under God’s dominion. Outside of God’s dominion, humans have no dominion (authority and power).
God created every living thing to live within an essential environment. Animals live on the earth and require the earth to live. Fish live in the sea and require the sea to live. Humans, being spiritual, live in the Spirit and require Spirit to live spiritually, to be human. When Adam and Eve sinned, they stepped out of the Spirit like a fish jumping out of water, and they became spiritually dead. Jesus came to bring people back within their essential environment of the Spirit and have live again, to be human again.
– Ephesians 2:1 — And you were dead in the trespasses and sins
– Romans 5:12 — Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned—
– Ephesians 2:5 — Even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved….
– John 15:5 — I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing.
– Galatians 6:8 — For the one who sows to his own flesh will from the flesh reap corruption, but the one who sows to the Spirit will from the Spirit reap eternal life.
– Romans 8:14 — For all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God.
– John 6:63 — It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh is no help at all. The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life.
“Cross” Fit S-WOD (Spiritual Workout of the Day) – 31 October 2024: Today seek to be the image of Jesus in all you think, say, and do, and have dominion within His dominion.
Defenders Bible Reading Plan 