The wonder of the cross

It's Good Friday today - good because of what Christ has done for us on this special day. But it's easy to forget what actually happened; my prayer today is that I 'may see it like the first time' again this Easter time.

O precious sight

O precious sight, my Saviour stands

Dying for me with outstretched hands

O precious sight, I love to gaze
Remembering salvation's day
Remembering salvation's day

Though my eyes linger on this scene
May passing time and years not steal
The power with which it impacts me
The freshness of it's mystery
The freshness of it's mystery

Chorus:
May I never lose the wonder
The wonder of the cross
May I see it like the first time
Standing as a sinner lost
Undone by mercy and left speechless
Watching wide eyed at the cost
May I never lose the wonder
The wonder of the cross

Behold the God - Man crucified
The perfect sinless sacrifice
As blood ran down those nails and wood
History was split in two
Yes, History was split in two

Behold the empty wooden tree
His body gone, alive and free
We sing with everlasting joy
For sin and death have been destroyed
Yes sin and death have been destroyed

Chorus 
(bridge)
Chorus

by Vicky Beeching

Genesis 1:27 - Unity and diversity

So God created man
in his own image,
in the image of God
he created him;
male and female
he created them.

First occurrence of poetry in the Bible! And what a lovely poem it is too... The truth that humans are made in God's image is so important that it's repeated three times in two verses! 'We are made in God's image' - have you got that?? Take hold of that truth and apply it to your own life: you are hugely valuable and special to God.

Now we move on to the trickier aspects of this passage: the singular and the plural references in this verse (remember I do enjoy a bit of grammar!)

Unity: 'Man' in the first line of the poem is singular  this is because the first man represents all of us.Sin entered the world 'through one man' (Romans 5:12) and we're all implicated in that sin because we all belong to one man. But the sin that came into the world through one man's disobedience is overcome by salvation through one man's faithfulness (Romans 5:19). The human race is a single 'mankind'.

Diversity: God made them male and female, so plural. Mankind is made male and female for three reasons:

1. to fulfil 1:28 - 'be fruitful and increase'
2. to image what God is like - unity and diversity
3. to demonstrate the relationship between God and His people (Ephesians 5:22-27)

Both our gender and our relationships with the opposite sex are significant because they're part of imaging God. So behave carefully and prayerfully!

Genesis 1:26 - In God's image

This is the final stage of creation, the big finale, and one of the most extraordinary verses in the whole Bible...

Then God said, "Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.

God is consulting Himself, but Himself in the plural (red words). Bear with me through the grammar as it's important... The word for God used here ('Elohim') is itself plural, but the Bible later insists that the plural 'Elohim' refers to one God. For example, in Genesis 6:13 God ('Elohim') says to Noah, 'I am going to destroy the earth'. So this plurality (us, our) shows that God's oneness involves diversity: the Creator God (Father) is at the same time present in creation through His Spirit (Holy Spirit) and active in creation through His Word (Son). They are in relationship with each other.

The second amazing thing in this verse is that man is made in God's image, in his likeness! My image of God is marred because of my sin, but as Christ lives in me (Gal 2:20) I can still be a good 'likeness' of God to others.

Genesis 1:14-25 - God fills what he's formed

We've seen how God formed the world (days 1, 2 and 3) and now we see God will the world (days 4, 5 and 6). Like the first three days 'God said' and it happened, and God said that it was good. The order of the filling mirrors the order of the forming: (I tried to do arrows but they didn't want to work!)

CHAOS
GOD FORMED
Day 1: Light & dark	Day 2: Water & sky	Day 3: Land & sea
GOD FILLED
Day 4: Sun, moon & stars	Day 5: Fish & birds	Day 6: Living creatures

As I said yesterday the sun, moon and stars have no special powers - they merely mark time and give light. This is why we could have 'evening and morning' without them. It also explains why we shouldn't worship them and follow a horoscope. We could even use this as a gospel opportunity and say 'I don't follow the stars; I follow the creator of the stars!' (How cheesy is that?!)

The Magician's Nephew goes on in describing the creation of Narnia:

You could imagine that it [the sun] laughed for joy as it came up. And as its beams shot across the land the travellers could see for the first time what sort of place they were in. It was a valley through which a broad, swift river wound its way, flowing eastward toward the sun. Southward there were mountains, northward there were lower hills. But it was a valley of mere earth, rock and water; there was not a tree, not a bush, not a blade of grass to be seen. The earth was of many colours: they were fresh, hot and vivid. They made you feel excited; until you saw the Singer himself, and then you forgot everything else. It was a Lion. Huge, shaggy, and bright, it stood facing the risen sun. Its mouth was open in song and it was about three hundred yards away...
The Lion was pacing to and fro about that empty land and singing his new song. It was softer and more lilting than the song by which he had called up the stars and the sun; a gentle, rippling music. And as he walked and sang the valley grew green with grass. It spread out from the Lion like a pool. It ran up the sides of the little hills like a wave. In a few minutes it was creeping up the lower slopes of the distant mountains, making that young world every moment softer. The light wind could now be heard ruffling the grass. Soon there were other things beside grass. The higher slopes grew dark with heather. Patches of rougher and more bristling green appeared in the valley... It was a little, spiky thing that threw out dozens of arms and covered these arms with green and grew larger at the rate of about an inch every two seconds. There was dozens of these things all round him [Digory] now. When they were nearly as tall as himself he saw what they were. 'Trees!' he exclaimed.
There was certainly plenty to watch and listen to. The tree which Digory had noticed first was now a full-grown beech whose branches swayed gently above his head. They stood on cool, green grass, sprinkled with daisies and buttercups. A little way off, along the river bank, willows were growing. On the other side tangles of flowering currant, lilac, wild rose, and rhododendron closed them in.
All this time the Lion's song, and his stately prowl, to and fro, backwards and forwards, was going on... Polly was finding the song more and more interesting because she thought she was beginning to see the connexion between the music and the things that were happening. When a line of dark firs sprang up on a ridge about a hundred yards away she felt that they were connected with a series of deep, prolonged notes which the Lion had sung a second before. And when he burst into a rapid series of lighter notes she was not surprised to see primroses suddenly appearing in every direction. Thus, with an unspeakable thrill, she felt quite certain that all the things were coming (as she said) 'out of the Lion's head'.

I'll leave the creation of the animals for another day!

Genesis 1:3-13 - God speaks

'God said' - God expresses his will and it happens immediately! Wow!

Genesis tells us that the world had a specific beginning, developing in stages and becoming increasingly complex:

• Day 1: light and dark
• Day 2: water and sky
• Day 3: land and sea

Something I noticed for the first time this time round of reading (and how many times have I read Genesis 1??) is that it's a strange 'evening and morning' as there is no sun or moon yet! But we'll discover tomorrow that the sun and the moon merely mark time, they don't control it. We also start our days with morning and finish with evening, but God created it the opposite way round. How could this change my view of timings?

I love how C.S. Lewis shows the creation of the world of Narnia in his book The Magician's Nephew: 

And really it was uncommonly like Nothing. There were no stars. It was so dark that they couldn't see one another at all and it made no difference whether you kept your eyes shut or opened. Under their feet there was a cool, flat something which might have been earth, and was certainly not grass or wood. The air was cold and dry and there was no wind... In the darkness something was happening at last. A voice had begun to sing. It was very far away and Digory found it hard to decide from what direction it was coming. Sometimes it seemed to come from all directions at once. Sometimes he almost though it was coming out of the earth beneath them. Its lower notes were deep enough to be the voice of the earth itself. There were no words. There was hardly even a tune. But it was, beyond comparison, the most beautiful noise he had ever heard. It was so beautiful he could hardly bear it... Then two wonders happened at the same moment. One was that the voice was suddenly joined by other voices; more voices than you could possibly count. They were in harmony with it, but far higher up the scale: cold, tingling, silvery voices. The second wonder was that the blackness overhead, all at once, was blazing with stars. They didn't come out gently one by one, as they do on a summer evening. One moment there had been nothing but darkness; next moment a thousand, thousand points of light leaped about - single stars, constellations, and planets, brighter and bigger than any in our world. There were no clouds. The new stars and the new voices began at exactly the same time... The Voice on the earth was now louder and more triumphant; but the voices in the sky, after singing loudly with it for a time, began to get fainter. And now something else was happening. Far away, and down near the horizon, the sky began to turn grey. A light wind, very fresh, began to stir. The sky, in that one place, grew slowly and steadily paler. You could see shapes of hills standing up dark against it. All the time the Voice went on singing... The eastern sky changed from white to pink and from pink to gold. The Voice rose and rose, till all the air was shaking with it. And just as it swelled to the mightiest and most glorious sound it had yet produced, the sun arose.

Now I know that the sequencing of the creation of Narnia is not the same as the order of creation for Earth, but I find it really helpful to think of the Voice creating all of Narnia just by singing. 

Back to the Bible to finish off... Each outcome (v 4, 10 and 12) is described as 'good'. God has declared his creation as 'good' and we should enjoy it as such. 1 Timothy 4:3-5 tells us that everything God created is good and we should receive it with thanksgiving.

Genesis 1:1-2 - In the beginning God

In the beginning God created... 'God created' - such simple words to say, but what huge impact on everything! God existed and he then created something out of nothing.

"Before the mountains were born
or you brought forth the earth and the world,
from everlasting to everlasting you are God."
Psalm 90:2

Before God created the world there wasn't nothing - there was God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit sharing an eternal relationship of love and glory! Wow!

(Here's a bit of grammar for you too... in this sentence 'God' is a plural word and 'created' is singular - this shows the plurality, yet oneness of God. And, in case you're interested, the word 'created' ['bra' in Hebrew] is only used in the Bible to speak of divine creation.)

This song has been going round my head in relation to this passage - it's by Phatfish and the chorus and last verse say:

In the beginning God

In the beginning God created

Life exploded

In the beginning

Right at the start there was the Word

And the Word was with God

Right at the start the Word was God

Yes the Word was with God

And through Him everything was made

Nothing was made without Him

In Him was life and that's the life

That's the light of all men.

Pursuit in 2013

Each year, for the past 12 years, I have had a verse from the Bible which is specific for that year. Sometimes I have had to hunt for them; other times they have lept out of a passage I was studying at the time. Sometimes they have encouraging; other times challenging.

Last year I had Jeremiah 17:7-8 as my verse (see below). I was intrigued by this choice as Jeremiah is not a book I am familiar with, but this verse stuck in my head after I'd read it in a book. Looking back over 2012 it has definitely been a year of drought for me with the birth of Zoë Grace and first year of being a mum. I have not been able to read, study, pray or listen as much as I was used to, but I don't feel that I have withered. It's always difficult to see whether you've borne fruit, but from what others have said, I think that I have.

My verse for 2013 is 1 Timothy 6:11" But you, man of God, flee from all this, and pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, endurance and gentleness." In between my conversion and Jesus' return I am to live in a certain way: fleeing ungodliness and pursuing godly characteristics. And I'm not just to breeze through life, I'm to actively pursue these characteristics. It reminds me of all the athletes who have 'pursued' the Gold medal; they've trained hard, given up certain things, all for the single result. I am to live in the same way. 

Over the year my plan is to ponder one of these words for a couple of months (Jan/Feb: righteousness, Mar/Apr: godliness, May/Jun: faith, Jul/Aug: love, Sep/Oct: endurance, Nov/Dec: gentleness) and find out all I can about what it means, what it means to how I should live, where it's used in the Bible etc. I'll let you know what I find... 

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2012 – “But blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord, who confidence is in him. He will be like a tree planted by the water that sends out its roots by the stream. It does not fear when heat comes; its leaves are always green. It has no worries in a year of drought and never fails to bear fruit.”

Jeremiah 17:7-8

2011 - “Be still, and know that I am God. I will be exalted among the nations; I will be exalted in the earth.” Psalm 46:10

2010 – “Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable – if anything is excellent or praiseworthy – think about such things.”  Philippians 4:8

2009 – “You see that his faith and his actions were working together, and his faith was made complete by what he did.”  James 2:22

2008 – “For God did not give us a spirit of timidity, but a spirit of power, of love and of self-discipline.” 2 Timothy 1:7

2007 – “Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of you mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is – his good, pleasing and perfect will.” Romans 12:2

2006 – “Be joyful always; pray continuously; give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.” 1 Thessalonians 5:16-18

2005 – “So then, just as you received Christ Jesus as Lord, continue to live in him,, rooted and built up in him,, strengthened in the faith as you were taught, and overflowing with thankfulness.” Colossians 2:6-7

2004 – “Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts.” Psalm 139:23

2003 – “For no-one can lay any foundation other than the one already laid, which is Jesus Christ.” 1 Corinthians 3:11

2002 – “He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the hearts of men; yet they cannot fathom what God has done from beginning to end.” Ecclesiastes 3:11

“Do everything without complaining or arguing, so that you may become blameless and pure, children of God without fault in a crooked and depraved generation, in which you shine like starts in the universe.” Philippians 2:14-15