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God is a worker.

^“15 The Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it.” NIV UK

‘’My Father is always at his work to this very day, and I too am working’’ (John 5:17).

The famous preacher/author, Chuck Swindoll, once quipped: ‘Many Christians think Manual Labour is the President of Mexico!’

God is a worker. This is the story of Genesis so far. God is a hard worker: that’s how the universe got to be here. God is an abundantly creative worker: that’s how the world with all its variety (including you and me) came to be here. God has established a pattern of six days for work and one for rest. If we follow His example, we will not descend into workaholism, but we will certainly not be lazy either. Christian workers who violate this principle, however sincere they may be, are probably heading for burn out at some point. Even if not, it sounds like saying you know better than God. However spiritual it may appear, it’s not right. In that direction lies a train wreck.

But a proper understanding of today’s single verse will motivate us to work; to see its value and beauty and dignity. But it also shows that the work God calls us to join Him in is not destructive of the earth, but it is rather to ‘’take care of it’’. If the human race had taken note of this, and not been so greedy, we would not have the environmental disaster on our hands that we are currently facing.

Here is an extension of the thought about work from the pen of F.B. Meyer: ‘ Every man is entrusted with a garden, that he may keep it. God’s goodness is no excuse for idleness. Whether your heart and life shall produce weeds or flowers and fruits depends on you. Ponder Prov. 4:23; 24:30, 31.’ Devotional Commentary, p.16

PRAYER: Lord God, thank you for the gift of work. Help us to work hard at whatever tasks you have given us. Thank you that we can all be difference makers in this world when we do our work through you and for you. Lord have mercy on our planet. Forgive us for our careless rape of its resources. Please forgive us for all we do to destroy the earth rather than care for it, and lead us to repentance, for Jesus’ sake. Amen.

Genesis 2:8-14: Trees and rivers.

^“8 Now the Lord God had planted a garden in the east, in Eden; and there he put the man he had formed. ⁹ The Lord God made all kinds of trees grow out of the ground – trees that were pleasing to the eye and good for food. In the middle of the garden were the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.  ¹⁰ A river watering the garden flowed from Eden; from there it was separated into four headwaters. ¹¹ The name of the first is the Pishon; it winds through the entire land of Havilah, where there is gold. ¹² (The gold of that land is good; aromatic resin and onyx are also there.) ¹³ The name of the second river is the Gihon; it winds through the entire land of Cush. ¹⁴ The name of the third river is the Tigris; it runs along the east side of Ashur. And the fourth river is the Euphrates.” NIV UK

‘’They will be called oaks of righteousness, a planting of the LORD for the display of his splendour’’ (Isaiah 61:3b).

Believers have been put on the earth to be fruitful and flowing.

 Like the fruit trees in Eden, God makes us beautiful and delicious. Somebody spoke about ‘the give-away life’ of the Christian. God grows the ‘fruit of the Spirit’ in us, so that others may benefit. They can sample this fruit and ‘’Taste and see that the LORD is good…’’ (Psalm 34:8). Although the fruit may be growing on us, it’s God’s fruit. It’s His work; His produce. A God-planted believing man or woman will be ‘’pleasing to the eye’’ and ‘’good for food’’. There will be something both beautiful and appetising about the lives they lead. There will be those people looking on who say, ‘I want some of that.’ (As someone observed: our lives should be commercials for the Kingdom, saying in effect, ‘If you like what you see, why not visit your local showroom?!’)

Also, like the rivers flowing out of Eden, the Holy Spirit who first refreshes us (10), comes to bring freshness to the dry world around. God gives us an outgoing life. It’s a life which produces fruit for others; a life bringing vitality to others. It’s a life that is meant to wind ‘’through the entire land’’, you might say. It’s not to stay locked up inside us, but is meant to flow out. This calls to mind Ezekiel’s vision of the ever-deepening river flowing from the temple (Ezekiel 47:1-12), and Jesus’ words about ‘’living water’’ (John 7:37-39).

PRAYER: Lord, you do not expect me to keep this Christian life to myself. It’s clear you want others to feed on it and to be blessed by it. May my life flood the world with yours!

Genesis 1:24-31: The truth about man.

^“24 And God said, ‘Let the land produce living creatures according to their kinds: the livestock, the creatures that move along the ground, and the wild animals, each according to its kind.’ And it was so. ²⁵ God made the wild animals according to their kinds, the livestock according to their kinds, and all the creatures that move along the ground according to their kinds. And God saw that it was good.  ²⁶ Then God said, ‘Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals,and over all the creatures that move along the ground.’

²⁸ God blessed them and said to them, ‘Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky and over every living creature that moves on the ground.’

²⁹ Then God said, ‘I give you every seed-bearing plant on the face of the whole earth and every tree that has fruit with seed in it. They will be yours for food. ³⁰ And to all the beasts of the earth and all the birds in the sky and all the creatures that move along the ground – everything that has the breath of life in it – I give every green plant for food.’ And it was so. ³¹ God saw all that he had made, and it was very good. And there was evening, and there was morning – the sixth day.” NIV UK

Man appears at the end of Genesis 1 as the crown and pinnacle of creation. There is something different about him/her compared to every other life form. Only man was made in the ‘’image’’ of God, created to ‘’rule’’ (26, 28). I once heard a preacher say: ‘The truth about man is that he was meant to tell the whole truth about God’. But, of course, he does not now do so. Since the fall into sin (which we will come to look at shortly), that image has been marred. It has become defaced and distorted. But everyone in Christ is in a process of restoration. What was lost in the garden is being restored (Ephesians 4:20-24; Colossians 3:9, 10).

Edgar Wallace, who wrote mystery stories, lived in the same street as a Christian man. Wallace apparently said, ‘As long as I live in the same street as that man, I cannot doubt that there is a God.’ The man wasn’t God, of course; but it would seem that he was becoming more and more like Him. No Christian on earth has yet been perfected. But because we are in the process, we can have a similar impact on our neighbours. Now isn’t that something to covet?

PRAYER: Lord, let me reflect your glory in this world. Grant that my life may be evidence for your reality.

Genesis 1:20-23: Teeming with life.

“²⁰ And God said, ‘Let the water teem with living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth across the vault of the sky.’ ²¹ So God created the great creatures of the sea and every living thing with which the water teems and that moves about in it, according to their kinds, and every winged bird according to its kind. And God saw that it was good. ²² God blessed them and said, ‘Be fruitful and increase in number and fill the water in the seas, and let the birds increase on the earth.’ ²³ And there was evening, and there was morning – the fifth day. “ NIV UK

Happy New Year! May it be truly blessed.

We serve the God of super-abundance. He is the Lord who creates teeming life and causes ‘’increase’’. I pray you will know this God-given increase in your spiritual life and in the life of your church. God does not dribble His blessing upon us; He pours it out liberally.

‘’The blessing of the LORD makes rich, and he adds no sorrow with it’’ (Proverbs 10:22).

PRAYER: ‘’Oh, that you would bless me and enlarge my territory! Let your hand be with me…’’ (1 Chronicles 4:10).

Genesis 1: 14-19: Throwaway line.

^’14 And God said, ‘Let there be lights in the vault of the sky to separate the day from the night, and let them serve as signs to mark sacred times, and days and years, ¹⁵ and let them be lights in the vault of the sky to give light on the earth.’ And it was so. ¹⁶ God made two great lights – the greater light to govern the day and the lesser light to govern the night. He also made the stars. ¹⁷ God set them in the vault of the sky to give light on the earth, ¹⁸ to govern the day and the night, and to separate light from darkness. And God saw that it was good. ¹⁹ And there was evening, and there was morning – the fourth day.” NIV UK

It almost seems a throwaway line: ‘’He also made the stars’’ (16b).

‘’When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, what is man that you are mindful of him, the son of man that you care for him?’’ (Psalm 8:3,4).

A little while ago, one clear night, Jilly and I braved the cold and went on to Melmerby Moor, in the Dales, to look at the stars. It’s not officially ‘dark sky’ up there, but there is less light pollution than most of us experience. It was magnificent in its immeasurable expansiveness. Almost immediately I saw (I think!!) a shooting star. It was there one moment and gone the next. The more clearly we see the night sky, the more we wonder, and the more we are put in our place. Yet how briefly and beautifully the creation story deals with the making of the stars. It’s like a shooting verse!

In the spiritual universe, Jesus is ‘’the greater light’’. We are like the moon and stars: ‘’lesser’’ lights to ‘’govern the night’’. We do have an authoritative role in the world, and it is linked to our holiness. The more light in our lives, the greater the likeness to Jesus, the more will be our impact. Jesus shines with His own inherent light, but what a privilege to be able to reflect Him (Philippians 2:14-16).

Genesis 1:6-13: The secret of fruitfulness.

^‘6 And God said, ‘Let there be a vault between the waters to separate water from water.’ ⁷ So God made the vault and separated the water under the vault from the water above it. And it was so. ⁸ God called the vault ‘sky’. And there was evening, and there was morning – the second day. ⁹ And God said, ‘Let the water under the sky be gathered to one place, and let dry ground appear.’ And it was so. ¹⁰ God called the dry ground ‘land’, and the gathered waters he called ‘seas’. And God saw that it was good. ¹¹ Then God said, ‘Let the land produce vegetation: seed-bearing plants and trees on the land that bear fruit with seed in it, according to their various kinds.’ And it was so. ¹² The land produced vegetation: plants bearing seed according to their kinds and trees bearing fruit with seed in it according to their kinds. And God saw that it was good. ¹³ And there was evening, and there was morning – the third day.” NIV UK

It is a ‘’good’’ thing to be fruitful. God has declared it so. As we prepare to exit one year and to enter another, I want to know how I can be fruitful. I want the church I’m part of to be fruitful.

Well, as with the ‘’vegetation’’ in today’s passage, there are different ‘’kinds’’ of believers. There’s a great variety in the church. We differ so much from one another. Our backgrounds are not the same. Our wiring is different. ‘I’d like you more if you were more like me’ is the title of a recent book from the pen of John Ortberg. Of course it expresses the fact that we are different, and that these differences often lead to tensions. John Stott once observed that we are not to imagine that we have all been ‘mass produced in some celestial factory’. But as different as we may be, He makes us all with the potential for fruitfulness.

There can be no fruitfulness without the Word Of God: ‘’Then God said, ‘’Let the land produce vegetation…’’ ‘’

There can be no fruitfulness without the activity of God Himself.

PRAYER: O Lord, make us very fruitful, to the glory of your Name.

Genesis 1:1-5: ‘And God said…’

“In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. ² Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.  ³ And God said, ‘Let there be light,’ and there was light. ⁴ God saw that the light was good, and he separated the light from the darkness. ⁵ God called the light ‘day’, and the darkness he called ‘night’. And there was evening, and there was morning – the first day.

I read a devotional by the preacher and author A.W. Tozer. (I’m reminded, by the way, of something Warren Wiersbe wrote about Tozer’s preaching, saying that it was about as safe as a blast furnace!) Anyway, as best as I understood it, in this piece Tozer was saying that we seem to feel obliged, often, to try to explain what God hasn’t explained. He argued that we should have the confidence to say what God has said, and leave the outcome with Him.

God’s Word certainly is a powerful word. Throughout Genesis 1 we hear the repeated refrain: ‘’And God said…And it was so.’’ John 1 tells us that through ‘’the Word’’ (Jesus), ‘’all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made’’ (John 1:3). The writer to the Hebrews says: ‘’sustaining all things by his powerful word’’ (Hebs.1:3). Here in the opening verses of Genesis, God’s Word and Spirit combined to create light where previously there was ‘’darkness’’ (2).

The passage also tells us that God ‘’separated the light from the darkness’’ (4). I want to say, ‘What God has put asunder, let no man join together.’ ‘’…what fellowship can light have with darkness?’’ (2 Corinthians 7:14).

‘’This is the message we have heard from him and declare to you: God is light; in him there is no darkness at all. If we claim to have fellowship with him yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not live by the truth. But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin’’ (1 John 1:5-7).

In our own lives; in the pursuit of holiness, we must ever be separating out the darkness from the light. Let the light expose it, then let the darkness be evicted. It does not belong in our redeemed hearts. The light should ‘’govern’’ us (16) and not the dark.

PRAYER: Holy Lord, may we as children of light continually separate ourselves from all which is dark and alien to you.

Mark 16:9-20: He’s back!

^“9 When Jesus rose early on the first day of the week, he appeared first to Mary Magdalene, out of whom he had driven seven demons. ¹⁰ She went and told those who had been with him and who were mourning and weeping. ¹¹ When they heard that Jesus was alive and that she had seen him, they did not believe it.  ¹² Afterwards Jesus appeared in a different form to two of them while they were walking in the country. ¹³ These returned and reported it to the rest; but they did not believe them either.  ¹⁴ Later Jesus appeared to the Eleven as they were eating; he rebuked them for their lack of faith and their stubborn refusal to believe those who had seen him after he had risen.  ¹⁵ He said to them, ‘Go into all the world and preach the gospel to all creation.¹⁶ Whoever believes and is baptised will be saved, but whoever does not believe will be condemned. ¹⁷ And these signs will accompany those who believe: in my name they will drive out demons; they will speak in new tongues; ¹⁸ they will pick up snakes with their hands; and when they drink deadly poison, it will not hurt them at all; they will place their hands on people who are ill, and they will get well.’  ¹⁹ After the Lord Jesus had spoken to them, he was taken up into heaven and he sat at the right hand of God. ²⁰ Then the disciples went out and preached everywhere, and the Lord worked with them and confirmed his word by the signs that accompanied it. NIV UK

The story of the resurrection may have that ‘too good to be true’ feel about it. The first witnesses were met with incredulity also (11, 13 and 14). But many people who start out shaking their heads in disbelief, end up on their knees in wonder. We should not be surprised. As the last verse shows, the Lord is alive, and He works ‘’with’’ His church. He meets people today. He speaks to us. He shows us He is alive.  I remember the first time I saw the play of ‘the Lion, the witch and the wardrobe’. We had watched Aslan be slain at the hands of the wicked witch. But when, a little while later, he appeared triumphantly alive at the top of the steps towards the rear of the theatre, we wanted to cheer. Something of the thrill of the resurrection story vibrated through us. The symbolism rang loud bells in our hearts.  The message for a sin-infected world is ‘Danger, God at work!’ Sin and evil are under threat, because Jesus is alive, and His Kingdom is coming.

So let’s conclude our look at Mark’s gospel with a great big ‘Hallelujah!’ A.W. Tozer commented that some people come home from a ball game hoarse from shouting, but in the church our joy doesn’t often come close to that. How sad when we have such a thrilling message. He’s back!

‘The stone was rolled away, not to let Jesus out, but to let the church in.’ Seeing what we see, how can we be silent?