Genesis 1 Commentary

The Old Testament Is Just as Relevant and Essential as the New Testament

The Old Testament is just as relevant and essential as the New Testament. There is a great deal going on today that dismisses the Old Testament as non-essential or even as harsh and oppressive. And there are many assumptions that say the Old Testament is done away with now, and that God has somehow changed with Christ.

Yet the Old Testament is just as essential as the New Testament in understanding who God is, what His will is, what godliness is, and what true spiritual religion is. Without it, we fall into many errors. This prejudice against the Old Testament works many wrong ideas about what God’s grace means, and it leads many away from the true purpose in God’s salvation.

People who speak this way sadly reveal their great ignorance and prejudice against God. “Out of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaks.” (Luke 6:45) They don’t understand God’s ways, and often reveal a heart that does not wish to be fully accountable to know God deeply and walk in holiness.

Part of our rejection of the Old Testament can come from oppressive and harmful ideas surrounding God’s law, and there is legitimacy in this struggle; yet people often “solve” this problem by throwing out very important things of God.

In truth, we should have a far greater respect for God, and if we truly valued the whole of His Word, patiently listening to every part of it, this is what would form true spiritual depth and wisdom in us. Much of this work is in resisting wrong understandings and pressures carried out in God’s name! Just as we read of this very issue in all of Galatians—to resist bondage and slavery to wrong ideas that come in the name of God’s law. Yet many do not brave this hard work, and instead take the “easy road” of simply casting off this labor and faithfulness to God. Without this true work, none of us will be filled as we should with spiritual godliness that is a true substance and worth.

God’s Word speaks far deeper than we could ever imagine. Let us labor to see just how living and good His Word is, and wrestle to understand the whole of it rightly.

Dangers Around Intellect

One of the great traps we can fall into as Christians is that of a faith that only acknowledges a truth(s) about God, because this alone does nothing to rightly change the spirit within us. Our very belief in these facts can blind us from the right purposes of God in His religion. We can wrongly understand faith to be that of believing facts, rather than of a right spirit and living being formed in us through the Spirit of Jesus Christ and the Word of God.

As an example, there is much debate in the world today around the creation account, as well as many other things. A believer may wrestle through some of these questions, but we can end up in a wrong focus in life in the name of these things.

This is the great warning we have in James 2:19, “You believe that God is one; you do well. Even the demons believe—and shudder!” Believing right facts about God is not the fulfillment of “the faith”. True faith is what works the spirit of godliness and righteousness within us (1 Tim 1:5).

Faith is about taking hold of the core of a person. We all have seen many examples in life of people who technically don’t violate the letter of the law all while we see that the spirit and attitude in them is wrong and twisted. For example, many talk about their right to freedom of speech, and twist this to have some perverse “freedom” to say whatever evil they wish. Godly faith is about grasping this core in us and us walking in the light by this being purified.

The Lord reveals that much goes wrong in us through wrong believing. For example, when we don’t believe God to exist, nor that we are responsible towards Him, then we will not align our lives with these truths. But when faith is worked in us, we come to see these things as truth and reality, and by this, we begin to change our whole approach to life. We begin to live beneath a right fear of God, and seek out what is good in His sight. Faith is about purifying these many many parts within us—and there are a great many branches in the human heart that must be sanctified and changed.

We’d never think that “truth” can blind us from Truth, but this sort of thing happens all the time. Where we believe we are as we should be because we acknowledge right facts about God, believing this is “faith”. We fail to see what right believing must truly produce in us—the great sanctification through Jesus Christ.

Because of this error, a person can be deceived into walking out the path of facts and debate instead of walking in the path of godliness and righteousness. They take facts and debate as the purpose of God, as the meaning of “faith”, rather than God’s true purpose. Because of this they are deceived, and walk down a very wrong path in the name of faith, religion, and “standing firm in the truth”.

For example, there are many in this world who “take a stand in the truth” against evolution, “liberalism”, and so on, who cannot see they are still no better in nature and life than an unbeliever. In fact, they might actually be worse. While they are busy with their crusades they miss the entire true purpose of faith—the sanctifying of their spirit and lives (2 Cor 7:1).

How is it possible for them to be worse? Because their religion works to harden their hearts, not soften them, to make them more self confident (“the truth backs us”) rather than less, more proud rather than more humble, more deaf rather than more willing to hear, and more unreasonable rather than reasonable because they think that faith transcends reason and logic. It also makes them harsher towards their neighbor rather than better and doing true good towards them.

They do not see that this comes from a broken faith. While they are busy “defending the truth”, their faith is not doing the right work of revealing these godly convictions within. Such believing as this never works to renew the spirit of their minds (Eph 4:23).

In believing they have taken a “stand” with these facts, they believe that they have done their duty. They do not see that their ideas about faith and standing for the truth are carnal and not of the wisdom from above (James 3:15). They try to live out their religion through carnal means, failing to understand how possible this is in religion. Their very efforts in the name of defending the truth come from a carnal mind and are “weapons of the flesh”; It is earthly, and not of the wisdom that is from above (James 3:15-18). Their very efforts in religion are of the carnal nature, and have not been renewed by the Spirit of God.

The flesh loves strife and debate, loves feeling special and superior, and they fail to realize that this is what they are pursuing through their attempts at religion. That they do not allow God to convict them at this level of their hearts—perhaps they don’t know how. And so, they take on these sinful little delicacies in their pursuit of religion. And because this is the true religion of the one true God, they don’t think it is possible for them to go wrong in it.

This reveals to us that what we believe about the things of God either directs our paths to what is truly of Him, or it can deceive us. It is very important that we examine what we believe faith to be—our faith about faith.

They have believed ideas in God’s religion; and our ideas about God are this issue of faith; and our faith can be very corrupt. They fail to acknowledge the Scriptures that would contradict their wrong believing about God.

This is where we need to understand faith for what it really is. Faith is about getting at all the ways we believe within ourselves, and how these can be corrupt; and this is no less true in our approach to religion. We can approach God and have a “faith” in God that is rooted entirely in what is selfish, presumptuous, proud, unfaithful, and self-serving.

Therefore while all of this can be happening in a person’s soul, they are busy imagining they are simply believing the truth, when they fail to realize that they are interpreting the Word of God through their sinful minds, and not truly allowing the work of faith upon them.

For such a person, they actually grow worse in their sin because now they believe that they are one with the truth, that the truth is approving and blessing them. They think the truth backs them, and that they are backing the truth. Therefore, they have believed they “know the light”, so now it is 10x more difficult to get them to see the darkness still in them (Matt 6:23).

So while we talk about subjects like the attacks against the creation account, it’s just as important, if not more important in our day, to see how the devil loves to come in and deceive believers in these very places. To make Christians feel proud and self satisfied for believing certain truths about God, and deceive them away from right faith.

Many spend their whole lives on controversy and debate in place of true godliness and in doing the will of God. They believe that this controversy and debate IS godliness—and this is where the devil deceives them.

People can spend their whole lives running down this path, believing they are serving God, and miss the entire purpose of God in His religion: “The aim of our charge is love that issues from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith.” (1 Tim 1:5) They waste themselves on the very things God warns us away from, “not to devote themselves to myths and endless genealogies, which promote speculations rather than the stewardship from God that is by faith.” (1 Tim 1:4) The topics and the types of debate today are different, so they don’t see how these verses are talking about them… But the point of the Lord here is that we can very easily be turned out of a right focus on godliness by devoting ourselves to debate/controversy. See also 2 Timothy 2:14-26. They are like Peter who wanted to take some stand for Christ with a sword, but was unwilling to learn how to stand for Jesus in humiliation, crucifixion, and godliness.

We miss our way when we fail to accept the simple truth that the only person who pleases God is the one who truly does the will of God. “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?’ And then will I declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.’” (Mt 7:21-23) God shows how people can think they serve Him and yet never have truly done the will of God.

Additionally, it is important for us to understand here the heart beneath these things; that people fall into this deception not just because they’re innocently deceived, they are deceived because of their sinful desires and a rejection of the work of righteousness. “depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.” (See also 2 Thess 2:10-12).

The spiritual issue here is that of refusing to love righteousness and to truly hold one’s self accountable to it. And because they have emptied their hands of this work they fill it with other things. They have also rejected the truth that they must be truly righteous in order to be accepted by God, so they do not have a right godly fear to balance them and direct them in their lives.

If such people would read the Scriptures more humbly, slowly, fully, and spiritually, they would see just how much the Scriptures warn us from such presumption. The very example of the Jewish people, especially in Christ’s day, shows us this exact same presumption. This being busy with “the religion of God” all while being a million miles away from the true Spirit of it. See Matthew 3:5-12.

So many people try to take a stand for God all while failing to understand that the true work for God is that of being cleansed ourselves. With all the noise today about the world’s sins—if we really cared about the world’s repentance then we would care 10x more about our own—for this alone is what glorifies Christ in this world.

THIS is meant to be the testimony to the world around us. God calls us to testify to the world through holiness, gentleness, respect, and true repentance in our own lives, yet many skip all of this work, settling for a pretense and acting these things, when the reality of them is not real within them. Instead, they want to testify through controversy and debate. They are entirely unworthy to preach to others. And though they talk, perhaps, about true facts of God, as to Him as the Creator, their sin within speaks continually against God, and turns people away from Him. “You who boast in the law dishonor God by breaking the law. For, as it is written, ‘The name of God is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you.’” (Rom 2:23-24)

The outcome of the fruits of such living is never what people think it is. Rather than increasing godliness, it does the opposite—both in themselves and in the hearers around them. They even fail to understand that the reason many people do not believe the creation account is not because of the science, but because of the nature within people who profess to believe in God and “speak the truth”. If Christianity were true, they think, then why would it not equally speak to the issues within such people?

Sin corrupts everything around it, and this is no less true of religion. Just because God is true does not make us true. We are only as true as we labor in this right work of God.

Therefore, it is very important to understand how we can “acknowledge the Light” all while fully resisting the Light’s work within (John 3:20), and this is the nature of sin and darkness (John 3:19-20).

Amazing to Live for God

How amazing what we have here in this chapter. We are told the beginning of the world! For all mankind tries to do with archeology and different sciences, no one can tell us this. Yet here we have God telling us exactly how He formed the heavens and the earth, all animals and plants, and mankind on the earth.

We can sometimes feel we want more from God, but imagine what we’d be without with just this one chapter!

And how beautiful is God’s creation! There is a place in all of humanity's hearts for God’s creation. A longing and desire. A deep peace and satisfaction. A craving for beauty and awe.

So many feel this great love for God’s creation, the purity and life of the earth. God shows us here that He knows exactly what our hearts desire; He has written paradise into our hearts.

What is tragic is how many try to take the creation without the Creator. To the natural mind, this can seem like a higher purity to be so invested in Earth and nature, but it very often exposes what the sinfulness of godlessness is—to take what God has created with no mind to God.

It should be said too that in our day we have a mindset about nature where we think that the more we exist “one with nature” the more elevated, enlightened, innocent, and superior we are. And while on one side, it is a very legitimate thing for many to feel such a lack in their souls for God’s creation—a desire to live closer to nature. Many feel this, and there can be much legitimacy in this. The problem is that many take this into a belief system, and think much of themselves by it. We can get so caught up in this that we completely miss the path of living righteous and godly lives.

There are many worldly hearts today that think they are superior for such a lifestyle, and they cannot see how this can be its own worldliness and self indulgence. And that they take this “purity” in place of holy and godly purity. Substituting the commandments of God for the commandments of their own minds. This sort of “goodness” can blind us with a false self righteousness, and lead us away from seeking a true righteousness in God.

Another issue here is that while we long for this pure earth—this calm purity and glorious beauty—we often do not long to be worthy of it. This reveals another part of the heart of sin in us. How we can expect good, even demanding it, yet we do not equally expect good from ourselves.

We expect God, His creation, the government, parents, and so on to be good and upright, while very often we take license to live however we like. We expect that we can live however we imagine in God’s world, and yet receive paradise despite how we have lived.

This reveals the great heart of presumption in mankind. Presumption is expecting good for ourselves without walking deserving of it.

And this sort of presumption exists in the world, it is also certainly rampant in the church—it is even what many people take the Gospel to grant them! The great foundation of the Word of God is righteousness, and this has practically been lost in our day. To see that God is righteous and calls us out of sin to be righteous, and thereby to live worthy of God and heaven.

That it is to the righteous that God will give eternal life with Him, and the “new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells.” (2 Pet 3:13) We reveal only sin in us if we expect good from God without expecting to live in true goodness before Him.

The creation of God is good, and it will all be put good again. God is speaking to our desire for the restoration of all things. Our desire for this should not just be for the ocean, trees, and animals, but should also be for the restoration of the human being. The greatest misery in this world is that of sin. That of all the dark and twisted ways that we live. All the “self satisfied without any true righteousness” ways that we live. All the ignorance of God and good we continue in. All the ways we pay no mind to God’s righteousness and obey Him in it.

And to the Christian—many are guilty of “calling on the name of the Lord” without any real change in these areas. We profess to acknowledge God, to say we are against sin, and yet far too many have any real change on these points. Our Christianity is merely a system of ideas about God, and can lack any real light or salt. This reveals the nature of sin in us.

Yet God is true, and there is true righteousness in Him. There is real wisdom and life. And for all of us, God is saying to the Christian and the unbeliever that we either truly seek God—past our little narrow ideas of Him—that we truly seek righteousness in Him, or we reject Him.

It cannot therefore be stated enough just how much the name of people doing this is a hindrance to the true form of it. That so many declare to others to “obey God’s law”, when their ideas about God’s law are nothing more than foolishness, prejudice, hatred, traditionalism, and self conceit. Content in their own form of self righteousness.

Many of us profess to obey God’s law who are a million miles away from truly listening to Him. They have lost the whole point of God’s law—a real righteousness and godliness. It is only in truly listening to God that we are changed. Otherwise we remain in our sins, and they just take up religious forms.

How many are not truly changed? Their sin is just rooted in their religion. They are just as ignorant and hard hearted, their “faith” now just is the root of it. How many are so sure they know and understand when no one can really show them how harsh and hateful they really are? They oppress the world in their sins, and yet believe they render service to God!

Therefore what I am saying is not obeying these “commandments”, but truly coming to understanding a real and living righteousness found in God, through Christ. To obey what is truly good, fair, merciful yet just, and what is truly of God. All of us are accountable to this. And God says to all of mankind that we either seek the God of all of us, and look and truly listen for what is good before Him, or we reject Him and righteousness, and will have no part in His paradise.

Restoration of All Things

Very often we hear people lamenting the state of the world—the animals suffering, the oceans being polluted and filled with garbage, the trees being cut down. Yet there is still such a disconnect between this pain and frustration in us and understanding that this desire for restoration is exactly what God is speaking to.

God has been working to show mankind how the world is broken. And while we can see this in a polluted ocean, or a battered animal, we often don’t go full circle in understanding that it is God who is the one who is speaking to all of this.

God is the one speaking to us about a lost paradise, and how our souls long for a perfect world. God is the one showing us the injustices and wrongs that exist in the world. Where people wrong one another, are indifferent to the needs and rights of others—all of these things are sin.

Sin has so much baggage around it that we can so rarely see how this word helps us, describes what the world is facing, and what we are experiencing over and over that we hate.

Sin becomes this word of bondage and religious oppression in our mind, when the whole point is it is a word that describes all the bitterness and harm we see around us. That is the fallout and cost of all sin does in this world.

And God speaks to all of us that it is right that we desire this restoration and redemption of all things, that we hate these dark and evil things—that is the very thing He is promising to us to do something about. That is our very hope He seeks to give us in Himself.

The challenge with this is that sin and sorrow don’t begin and end with our own experiences or ideas of it. We must allow God to define what is sin as well as what is good. Many are deceived because they see sin in part and think they fully see. They are satisfied in their “self-righteousness” and wisdom. And because of this they don’t go beyond this, they don’t go to God.

And so, while we might hate sin in one way and discern things here and there, we do not see how sinful it is to rest self satisfied in this. To not think we should pursue a goodness and righteousness higher than our own selves. Where we have at first had a seed of something good in us—an anger against sin and injustice, a desire for something better and good—this can turn to a stronghold of rebellion against God, because we take this up against Him, as if not needing Him.

We also do not see how small our desires can be. To desire oceans to be clean, but not equally desire the oceans of all human hearts to be clean. To not desire the true knowledge of God to fill this world and for all people to truly do what is good and right. These things along with a pure and clean world. A world with no suffering and harm. But when our desires for restoration only end with self satisfaction and pride, our own little ideas and plans of making some half form commandments to put on others in the name of this, only end in desires for nature around us, but don’t go deeper, into a desire for the Creator, a desire for sin to be removed from all people around us and all sin from within us, then we don’t know as much as we think we do.

God doesn’t say this to us in disrespect but in a humble yearning for us to turn to Him. And for those who have turned to Him, to stop imagining they understand the depths of God’s purpose when they’ve only stepped inside the doorway.

Dominion

God gave to mankind as a whole dominion over the creation. This was supposed to be a dignified and good thing for creation. We were meant to be the shepherd and shepherdess of the animals, the cultivators of the gardens and earth.

If we had done this as we were meant to, it would have been a very good thing. When we look at the animals, it is not a demeaning thing for us to be “master” over them—so long as we did this rightly. Yet we see how miserable of a lord we can be over the animals, for many suffer because of us.

While God created all of us to have dominion in His creation, this is one of the great parts of mankind’s heart that has been deeply poisoned with sin. Rather than being a good thing, as God being Lord over us is truly good, it has become a very dark and bitter thing.

It is a sad thing when people talk as if we should have no mind to the animals or to this earth. While all of these should be secondary to our fellow man, and in “third” place to God, God created us to be lords over creation, and we can see some of the greatest examples of our sin in how miserable an earth we have left in our wake. Some people raise animals too high, and some people act as if God does not account them at all—both are big errors. We can also understand that a person can “rule over” animals much to their harm, and we all have responsibility to be lord over animals and creation with the rights and dignities they deserve. While God is concerned with mankind, and the end of God’s creation is found in His purpose of mankind, we only reveal the entitlement of the heart if we do not believe God rightly regards His creation of the animals—they are also apart of this world (Prov 12:10), and were a great part of our original responsibility before the fall of the world.

One of the most wicked parts of this corruption of dominion in us is in how we have tried to usurp our rightful place, and tried to take dominion over other human beings. Even the very angels of heaven call us fellow servants (Rev 19:10), and yet so many people have tried to take dominion over their fellow human in this world. It seems the words our Lord spoke in Matthew 23:8-12 fall mostly of deaf ears.

While it is no oppression or injustice to be lords over animals and trees, it is the greatest sin to try and do so over our fellow human. Only God has the right to this dominion over a person. To believe otherwise and to act otherwise is the greatest violation of the human soul. Many think violence is bound only in actions, but it is bound in beliefs contrary to the truth. To believe contrary to this truth, to work for it with the swords of words and will, is just as much violation and oppression as any robbery or physical harm.

The world has a very long history of people continually seeking dominion over others. One nation trying to dominate another. One group of people enslaving another. Yet no where in creation is this issue more prevalent than with men and women.

One of the great sins of multitudes of men has been their dark desire for dominion over women. A desire to covet the dominion, dignity, meaning, and purpose that God has given humankind all for themselves. So many boast of not coveting gold or possessions, who are guilty of coveting the far greater things of life! We see in Genesis how clearly God created men and women on equal ground, and gave dominion to BOTH, and that woman was never apart of that dominion given.

To seek to bring people beneath us is some of the greatest sin we can have in our hearts against people. It is the sin we are all guilty of in our sin of CONCEIT. We elevate ourselves above others. God spoke so deeply and wisely when He summed up all righteousness towards our fellow person in, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself”. To truly hold our neighbor on equal ground as ourselves, with equal rights, equal regard—is not the opposite the whole issue of sin?

How Should We Behave in God’s World?

How should we behave in God’s world?

It is a sad thing that this question doesn’t come naturally to our minds. The challenge we face is that all of us are born into a world in motion—all that the people before us valued and lived by surrounds us. We’re born in whole societies and cultures that are rooted in their ways of living. The attitudes, ways, values, and thinking are taken for granted as being what life is. Yet the sad truth is that very few are stopping in the midst of all their activities and truly looking to “walk before [God] and be blameless” (Gen 17:1).

We generally live in this world however we choose. We reach down and take what we want, do what we want, live however we want. And it is a general condition in us that we have no real regard for the effect we have on the world around us, nor to question if what we do in God’s world is approved by Him or not.

We expect that the effect we have is minimal, but very few truly face the actual effect they are having. We can see this clearly in the physical things we face today—the effect of industrial waste, polluted water, cancers caused by radiation or chemicals, and many such things. But this is equally true of the way we live our own lives spiritually. We choose philosophies and values to live by like they’re a game. We live in believing whatever we feel like, we choose ways to live, expecting them to be good (Ez 13:6). We have the relationships we desire, pursue and long after whatever seems best to us, make plans according to whatever we think best, and so on. Always failing to see how we pay no mind to the God of all creation, as well as denying or ignoring the effect all of these things have in His world.

Just the same as the “greedy corporation” that secretly poisons some small town by the by-product of their enterprises, so we poison the world around us with our beliefs and values, choices and works.

This is because we generally do not understand the spiritual effect we have upon the world. That every idea and belief we join with puts strength to that spiritual weight, arms I like a sword. The world slowly becomes the outcome of our ways, whatever they be. Selfishness, pride, lies, ignorance, godlessness—they spread like cancer.

And this is what we are all born into—we are born in the midst of generation upon generation of beliefs and values and their outcomes. Born in the midst of all the ways people have reached out their hands and taken what they wanted or thought best. And while we may grow up and see the fallout and flaws in previous generations and their systems, yet we often do not learn the lesson of the issue of self-will, nor see how we walk in the very same attitude—but in different ideas.

But if all of this was removed, if we were born alone, in a garden, before the Living God? In this pure world. What would we think? How would we think to direct our lives? How would we think to treat God and His creation? How would we act here? When there were more people around us, how would we think to treat another human, equally created in the image of God? Would we live so quickly in ambition and pride? Run to greed and self-seeking? Would we date people the way we do? Would we watch half of the things we do? How would we think about pursuing meaning and what to live for?

One of the things God tries to teach us about the world/worldliness is that it is living by the world’s mere system of values, ambitions, and ideas of good or meaning. All of us are created to follow, and we can never escape this nature in us. We either follow God, or we will follow something of the world.

I think many people are trying in some way to “live alone in the garden”, trying to reach out in some way to get past the influence of the world and into something pure. But very few think of the garden, alone, with God. They do not see that the only way to have the purity of the garden is through God.

Sadly, we are quite far away from seeing our responsibility to God in how we live. Many brush upon this when they see how we can live selfishly, just taking and taking and giving nothing back to the world around us. Seeing how much we harm nature and animals. But without God, we cannot see the true form of this humility, nor truly find it.

In God, we learn this true humility. To bear the right weight of how we live. To think about how we live in God’s world. Not just the physical world, but that alongside how we spiritually, mentally, emotionally, and physically live. All of this forming right faith in us. “Since we have these promises, beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from every defilement of body and spirit, bringing holiness to completion in the fear of God.” (2 Cor 7:1)

Many today cry out for the ocean, trees, and animals, but how sad that they don’t cry out to God—how we treat God! And they don’t cry out against sin and worldliness. All of us are responsible to God, to walk before Him and be blameless, and the great difference between this earth and Paradise is that we do not regard the will of God here (Mt 6:10).

We are responsible before God in how we treat Him, how we treat His Word, how we treat His Son, how we treat His world, how we treat our fellow human beings, how we treat the animals, and how we go about our lives; what we believe and value, if our ways are just and fair, wise and good, or they’re born of a corrupt mind, ideas coming merely from the world, from pride and selfish ambition, and of foolish imaginations of the heart.

This is the heart of idolatry. Idolatry is not just that people worshipped false gods (though, of course, yes) but it was the epitome of this sort of issue; where people lived out their own ideas and imaginations, doing whatever they wished. They set their lives by these things, ignoring the great poison it filled the world with. The great evil of how they lived in vain and in great harm by these false notions of what they thought.

The sad condition of our lives is that we too easily live by whatever gets a hold of us first. And we often think we’re so enlightened and unique, not seeing how it is merely the ideas of the world. We are desperate to find the way to a meaningful life, yet people do not see how God is the true answer to this need.

People live their lives merely for rage baiting, strife, ambition, some idea of “success”, fame, experiences, fitness/sports, sexual desires, and other enjoyments. Some idea gets us hooked, and we follow after it. This is what God is showing us is the world, and speaking to us to follow after Him rather than to follow after these things.

Now, to be very clear, the church is often no better here. Though the world has its cultures and idols, the church often has just as many. So many ideas and traditions come from generation after generation of people in their ways of walking after God, their imaginations about the things of God, lessons of His Scriptures, and traditions of these things.

These things have just as terrible an effect as anything in the world. By this, so many have poisoned the world around them. And just as we are born into the world in all its outcomes, so we are often born again into a similar mess. If we are not careful, we can take as “doctrine” the mere ideas of man about God. Living by the ideas and ambitions in the church, the very same way people follow ideas and ambitions in the world.

Therefore we must be very careful here to understand that to find life in God is not to come out of one error just to fall into another in God’s name. We must see how the world can exist in the church and in the very ideas of what people call “doctrine”. Life is found only in truly following God. We must be alone with God in the garden, and allow Him alone to teach us. Not our own minds and desires, but equally, not the minds and hearts of others.

To come back to God is not to follow what mere generations of “culture” in the church teach. It is to come to the pure and good God, and to truly listen to Him. In fact, it is often learning to step beyond “the traditions of our fathers” (Gal 1:14) into what is truly of God. So often people are willing to turn to God, and yet they are so quickly presented with these idols, cultures, traditions in God’s name that they are led only into a different misery. So we must be very clear that our responsibility to God is only found when we shun all idols and traditions and cultures of mankind, to find the true religion of God.

God, the Creator of Within as Well as Without

“Did not he who made the outside make the inside also?” (Luke 11:40)

When we think of God as the Creator we easily think of God as creating the physical world around us, but we often miss that God is the Creator of the spirit and soul within us, and the Creator of our minds and our hearts.

God has created all of us with the hidden place of our own minds and spirits. And these are often the places we see needing God the least, and often the places we live most in rebellion against God.

As God sustains the physical world around us, so we need Him for the inner world of our own souls. We need God to teach us how to live.

As mentioned in the previous section, we often walk in this world in whatever beliefs and philosophies catch our fancy, and we don’t understand how much this is idolatry, nor just how dangerous and harmful this is.

We need God to teach our souls how to live, to show us the way to go. It is only in truly abiding with Him that we come into a right understanding of life, meaning, wisdom, truth, godliness, and goodness.

We need God to define life, and to teach us how to live. Without this we wander beneath false gods, desiring many things that we need: meaning, purpose, life, truth, goodness, peace, and yet we will never truly find these without God.

Again, we must talk about the church here, because our need is for God and what is truly of Him, and we can fall short of this by being brought into bondage to false ideas about God (Gal 2:4-5). These things are some of the greatest traps of the Devil, and many fall prey to them.

Rather, the need is for what is truly of God. To be taught by the Word of God and the Spirit of God. “For all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God.” (Rom 8:14) It is imperative that we truly be led by God and not by the spirit of the minds of men in their own ideas about God. Many serve the latter, imagining they are following God, and do not see just how starved and lacking, harmful and vain, their ways truly are. They have mere philosophies in religion, which are no different than the ways of the world—walking in mere philosophies about life.

“For my people have committed two evils: they have forsaken me, the fountain of living waters, and hewed out cisterns for themselves, broken cisterns that can hold no water.” (Jer 2:13)

But as we step beyond these things, both living beneath our own minds and the mind of the world, and beyond the minds of mere men in the name of God, this is where we come to be truly led by God. He is the true fountain of living water, and where our lives are found. He is not just the Creator of the physical world, but the Creator of all within us.

God, the Creator of Without as Well as Within

Another error Christians can fall into is acting as if all God wants for us is the “within” world, and as if the physical without is vain and pointless in God’s sight.

Yet we see here just how wonderful the world is, the beautiful creation of God. We were made for this world.

A foolish and harmful view of God is that He is all spiritual and only cares about the things of heaven and within. This sort of over-religiousness greatly discourages the people of God, and fills them with burdens beyond what God is actually giving us. It is enough to learn how to live truly holy and godly lives in this world.

So many give some lip-service to having found full satisfaction in God “within”, acting as if they have no delight in the good things of life. And many then follow their example and feel they must offer the same lip service. They aren’t honest with their own experiences and how these seem to truly contradict their own needs.

We see in the beginning a window into how life is meant to be, and a pure and beautiful physical world is a great part of this.

The issue is when we do not see the God of this creation, and do not respect Him, know Him, seek to know Him, or walk before Him rightly. Where we only regard the physical world, as if this is all there is, and do not rightly understand the spiritual world as well. How we do not see the pure and beautiful God that all the creation comes from.

What Is the Godly Conviction Here?

The Lord speaks spiritual conviction in all of His Word, to show us the spirit and path of what is good and right (2 Tim 3:16). So what are those godly convictions in this chapter?

Some that are worth seeing here:

Respect. Respect for God, for our fellow human, and for the creation of God. Genesis 1 teaches us great significance in the Creator and in His creation. And it teaches us great value for mankind.

Worship. Everything we have is from God. He is good, and His creation reflects His nature. We are meant to see the LORD as the God of this world, that all things come from Him and through Him, as well as live unto Him: “For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory forever. Amen.” (Rom 11:36)

Life is from God. “In him we live and move and have our being” (Acts 17:28) All life is from God and sustained by God. This should humble us and teach us a right reverence for Him.

To respect the God of this world. This world is sustained by the power of God. We are wrong to simply do whatever we please and give no mind to the God of creation. We should walk before God with a continual mind of if things are acceptable in His eyes, and not live without reverence to Him—“I am God Almighty; walk before me, and be blameless.” (Gen 17:1) To take and eat and buy and engage in this or that thing with no regard to the God of this world is the great sin of godlessness.

Believe God. He is truly good, and seeks what is truly good for us. Like a perfect parent, truly loving us. Part of this is in giving us good, but part of this is disciplining us because we often “grow fat and kick” (Deut 32:12-15). The LORD is a good Father/Mother to us.

To be worthy of paradise. God creates paradise, and our souls touch upon the longing of this in fantasy and nature. But let us see that we must equally desire to be pure to enter a pure world. Let us strive to be worthy of the God who made us, and the new heavens and earth where righteousness dwells (2 Pet 3:13). To be as pure as clear water, as upright and patient as the enduring trees, and as beautiful in godliness and holiness as the rising and setting sun.

Don’t be deceived away from your true purpose in God. We find meaning in THIS call of God, to endeavor to walk in what is truly holy and godly, continually walking before God, serving Him, and obeying Him. Roar over your own soul like a jealous lion, and guard yourself from all that would try to come in to take you away from this—whether it be any idea of the world or pressure coming in the name of God. We serve whatever we follow, so serve Him alone. Sincerely seek God. Humbly bow your ear before Him and let His Word and Spirit teach you what is truly of Him, and the path you are to walk in. Do not be wise in your own eyes, even in, especially in, your own religion, but let God continually convict you and lead you.

We must truly do what is good. We must learn to find the nature and spirit of what is actually good, not just assuming that mere “name” of it. Very often we busy ourselves with things, assuming they are good or benign, yet it is incredibly rare for a person to truly search out what is actually good. We take for granted that what we do is good, our religion is good, our ways are good, never truly, deeply, examining them. And we love to poison the world with all our “goodness” and “good enough-ness”. But did God give us good in name only, or is it truly good in nature? Our goodness must be a real substance, like water is a real substance to thirst, and bread is a real substance of nourishment to the body. So many have a “godliness” and “righteousness” that is like a waterless cloud. It is vain and empty, or even darkness and cruel. And many in the world do not see their need for God because they are deceived by their own “goodness”, not seeing how lacking and hollow it is.

And lastly, God gives hope. We see here that God knows the great longing of our hearts, and that He is our hope to have all of these things again. God knows what we were created to live within. He is speaking and crying out for us to see that He is our refuge and hope in the midst of this stormy and dark world. He speaks to the very marrow of our existence, and is telling mankind to look to Him and be saved. To take hope in Him for a new heavens and new earth where righteousness dwells, and to walk as we were created to walk, in true godliness and righteousness, waiting for the appearing of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ, who will deliver us to this great Garden again.

“For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation for all people, training us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives in the present age, waiting for our blessed hope, the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ, who gave himself for us to redeem us from all lawlessness and to purify for himself a people for his own possession who are zealous for good works.” (Titus 2:11-14)

This is the message of the Gospel in Jesus Christ.