Guest
Blogger - Jonathan Hartwick
As we enter the early days of June, I am reminded of God’s divine order of creation as the birds sing, the plants, trees, and flowers come to spring in full colour and the animals emerge from surviving the winter to once again create new life themselves. The greatest causation of this season is the position of the sun and the warmth it gives to generate new life and sustain all living things under it.
Romans
1:20- For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine
nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in
the things that have been made. So they are without excuse.
The
revelation of God has been given to mankind through creation. It was to the
first Adam that God gave stewardship over all the earth. When Adam failed to
abide in perfect love, he broke covenant with Yahweh. He hid from the source
that is eternal life giving.
It doesn’t take long for us to see the first messianic prophecy in the redemption story. “And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her seed; he shall bruise your head and you shall bruise his heel”.
Now fast forward to the Genesis flood with Noah being the vessel through whom God preserves His “promised
seed”. He could have wiped out humanity and started over but that is not who He is. 2 Peter 3:9 “The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish but that all should reach repentance.”
God set his bow in the firmament to
remind us not only will he not flood the earth again, but looking ahead to the
day where He declares “behold I am making all things new” Rev 21:5
God shows
covenant mercy and keeps His promise to eventually come into the world through
the person of Jesus, saviour of the world, to restore the fallen order of
creation.
Satan’s lie to Adam was “you can be more than God created you to be”. God in Christ is saying “if you abide in me, I will show you who I created you to be”
Our greatest transgression is rooted in an identity crisis. Being created in the image and likeness of God, we have rejected our true self and have embraced a counterfeit version by conforming to the patterns of this age. (Romans 12:2)
“For all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God”. “For the wages of sin is death but the free gift of life is found in Christ Jesus our Lord” C.S Lewis summarized it best. He
believed that true
identity is not found by looking inward or inventing ourselves, but by
surrendering to the Creator.
He argued that our authentic personality emerges only when we stop trying to promote ourselves and instead align our lives with God’s purpose, famously noting that surrendering to Christ is the only way to discover who we were always meant to be.
