The Word Was God: Genesis 1 – In His Own Image

I’ve made it a goal to sit down at least once a week, read one chapter of the Bible, and pull out as much as I can from it, to see what God has taught me and to find out what he’s going to teach me next.

Today, I’m reading chapter 1 of Genesis.

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. –Genesis 1:1 (NIV84)

This very first verse of the Bible opens the story of Existence and sets God up as the ultimate creator, the architect of everything, from the vast collections of stars, galaxies, and planets that stretch across space to the mind-blowing complexity of a single cell.

The creation of anything is so complex, so intricate, so important – how could we ever think that anything or anybody was a mistake? God doesn’t just thrown stuff together without paying attention to detail. Everything he has made, he has made on purpose.

And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. – Genesis 1:3 (NIV84)

God’s creative power was his divine speech. He merely spoke about light and it suddenly existed, even before a sun or stars to provide it. And that same speech qualifies the light as “good.” In the same manner, he creates and qualifies the sun, moon, and stars, the sky, land, and oceans, the birds, fish, and land animals, and even man.

Speech is a much more powerful tool than we even realize today. We are taught as a child that “sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me.” That is one of the biggest lies we tell our children.

The spoken word has the power to build up and the power to destroy. In fact, it is the most powerful thing we do as humans, and yet, we are often careless and reckless with our words, unaware of the damage we are doing.

God spoke to create life and we should always do the same.

So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. –Genesis 1:27 (NIV84)

When a couple gets pregnant, loved ones often say, “It’ll be fun to have a little ‘you’ growing up.” The child will be made in the image of its parents. In the same way, God made us in his image, as our father. He didn’t have to do that. I mean, he made the platypus before he made us, so he was thinking far outside the box in creation. He could have made us into any form he wanted, but instead, he chose to make us in his image.

Along with that, he created a unique relationship between man and God, a relationship that continues to this day, where we have the ability to talk with God, unlike any other living thing.

God also created us to be creative ourselves. This is why we are drawn to sing, write, paint, build, play, and do so much more than just exist.

God gave us the ability to experience life in a way no other creature can. That is a gift we should never squander.

God saw all that he had made, and it was very good. And there was evening, and there was morning—the sixth day. –Genesis 1:31 (NIV84)

God laid the groundwork for today. When he looked upon all he had made and qualified it as “very good,” he could see into the future. At even this moment he knows what is coming. At the moment of creation, he knew that you would be reading this at this exact moment.

And he knew that darkness would still exist after he created the light.

Just as God was at work in the dark before light existed, so is he already working before the sun rises in the morning for us each day. And even when life is at its darkest, still he works to create light.

And he calls on us to help him spread that light throughout the world he created.

What an amazing honor.

In Genesis 1, we find that God creates everything and everyone for a purpose, we find that the spoken word has much more power in it than we realize, we find that our ability to create and experience life to its fullest is a gift we should cherish, and we find that, even though darkness still exists, the light God spoke into creation on Day 1 will always shine.