The Beauty of His Story: The Creator

What does it mean to create?

According to the dictionary, creating can involve any of these things:

• causing something to come into being
• evolving something from ones thoughts
• causing something to happen; to bring it about; to arrange it, as by intention or design

Any way you define it, creation is the opposite of destruction. And while Satan is bent on destroying us and the world around us, we can have hope because God is constantly at work to create.

God Created

At the beginning of time, God created. He made the heavens and the earth out of a formless, dark, empty nothing. He added sky, land, plants, the sun and moon, stars, and animals. He spoke things into being. He created and He was creative. I mean, have you seen some of the creatures who live on this planet? Who else but God would have thought to create the duck-billed platypus? He took the time to bring into being from His own thoughts an entire world full of stuff we could never imagine.

Want to know something amazing?

He created it all for us! He created it for us to enjoy. He created it for us to look at and wonder at the One who created it all.

“The heavens proclaim the glory of God.

The skies display his craftsmanship.

Day after day they continue to speak;

night after night they make him known.

They speak without a sound or word;

their voice is never heard.

Yet their message has gone throughout the earth,

and their words to all the world.”

Psalm 19:1-4 (NLT)

And then He created us... well, humans. After all the magnificent trees and plants and birds and animals, He stopped and created human beings with His own hands. He formed Adam and breathed into Him. He created something that had His image, that would carry His characteristics in human form. He gave us creativity and a will and knowledge. He brought us into being.

God Is Creating

In Psalm 139, David praises God for creating him, for knitting him together in his mother’s womb. Every new human who comes into this world is a reminder that God is continuing to create.

Aside from creating physically, though, God is also creating spiritually. This is where He stands in direct opposition to Satan. When we choose faith in Christ, we become a new creation (2 Corinthians 5:17). After his most famous sins (adultery and murder), David cries out to God saying, “Create in me a clean heart” (Psalm 51:10). The Hebrew word we translate to ‘create’ (bara) can mean both bringing something new into existence or recreating into something new. This process of creating is also called restoring, and it seems to be God’s favorite thing to do. 

He doesn’t just make our hearts pretty and clean. He actually recreates them so they’re entirely new. This is His promise to anyone who chooses Him (Ezekiel 36:26). He will take the crushed and broken pieces of the life that Satan has destroyed and make them into something new and glorious. Despite everything, God still wants a relationship with us. And the only way that can happen is by creating. How amazing to realize that in Christ, you ARE brand new, no longer defined by Satan and his attempts to destroy you.

God Will Create

Remember all the things I listed in the last post about Satan being a destroyer? I noted that we have disease, war, greed, power, divorce, abortion, death because Satan will use them all to destroy us.

BUT we can have hope despite all of that. And we can have it because God has created, is creating, and (best of all) will create.

“Look! I am creating new heavens and a new earth,

and no one will even think about the old ones anymore.

Be glad; rejoice forever in my creation!

And look! I will create Jerusalem as a place of happiness.

Her people will be a source of joy.

I will rejoice over Jerusalem and delight in my people.

And the sound of weeping and crying will be heard no more.”

Isaiah 65:17-19 (NLT, emphasis added)

Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the old heaven and the old earth had disappeared. And the sea was also gone. And I saw the holy city of Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven like a bride beautifully dressed for her husband. I heard a loud shout from the throne saying, “Look, God’s home is now among his people! He will live with them, and they will be his people. God himself will be with them. He will wipe every tear from their eyes, and there will be no more death or sorrow or crying or pain. All these things are gone forever.” And the one sitting on the throne said, “Look, I am making everything new!”

Revelation 21:1-5a (NLT, emphasis added)

A new heaven and a new earth are coming where God will dwell with us and Satan’s destruction will end. That stuff I listed before? “All these things are gone forever”!!!! I don’t know about you, but I cannot wait for that day to come. I’m so thankful that in the story God is writing, creation will win out over destruction in the end.

Where do you see God creating in your own life? How about in the lives of others?