Respond

DEVOTION

GENESIS

RESPOND

Gen 1:6-8

6 And God said, "Let there be an expanse between the waters to separate water from water." 7 So God made the expanse and separated the water under the expanse from the water above it. And it was so. 8 God called the expanse "sky." And there was evening, and there was morning — the second day.

NIV

Oh, the frustration of it, to have to endure the mind of the scholarly man in his efforts to explain this portion of creation. Most of them can only envision what they can see, the waters of the seas, and the vapor in the clouds. This is their water above and below being divided by air or atmosphere, an expanse. How small man thinks. How can we already be at this point of having the earth we know now and the formation of clouds in the sky, when there is not even a sun or a moon yet? We know the formation of clouds is a result of condensation which is the cooling of water vapor until it condensates into a visible form, a cloud. We know the lifting level of condensation is the point in which the evaporated water rises and is cooled three degrees every one thousand feet of rise and thus the bottom of the clouds are the point at which this evaporated vapor condensates and forms the cloud. This could not be the water above that God divided from the water below. This evaporation and formation of clouds happens until the clouds become too heavy with condensate and they let loose with solid water, rain. Up and down the water travels back and forth, it is all one part of the earth. There is never more molecules of water upon the earth and in the atmosphere than what God put here. No new water is every created. So what are we to believe about this water above and below which is divided with this expanse?  We need to read ahead just enough to see that God put the lights in the expanse to separate the day from the night and to mark the seasons and days and years. These two lights, the sun and the moon are not in the clouds, or in the sky under the clouds. They are in the expanse, space. This is above our atmosphere which the clouds are an integral part of. Therefor we are left with only one thought. There above all of space, all the universe, at the very edge of it, beyond the sight of any telescope is water. Although Moses was inspired by God to record all this for the rest of mankind so we would know our beginnings and that we were created in the image of God, rather than evolving from something else, he still could not fathom the entire greatness of God and the whole of the universe at his time in history. Since what we now know of the universe, at least the great depth of it, the immenseness of it, we know it is so much larger then what Moses could have understood. With this increased knowledge of the universe we have to be able to understand that what God put in the expanse is all of the universe. This would have to lead us to see the expanse as the whole of space, the complete space and that is so large, so overwhelmingly vast we cannot see its end. But if we were able to we are convinced we would run into a wall of water. That is how large our God is. That is how large the waters of the deep, that his Spirit was hovering over, are.  We serve a God is that is so majestic, so large, so incredibly vast in his power and might that he speaks and the whole of the universe comes into existence. So now we have a ball of water being from which land is to appear on and so forth, all in response to the words of God. He speaks and it happens. This is how we need to live our lives, in response to his words. Many of us live in our own little worlds. We live in our homes constructed with human hands. We live in our own little neighborhoods, our own little towns or cities, again built by men. We only see what we want to see, and believe what we want to believe. for many of us life revolves around our own desires, our goals, our ambitions. But when God speaks we need to respond. We need to see beyond ourselves, and see the world, the universe as God sees it and us. We need to respond to his words.  Of course this leaves us with the concept of how do we know when he is speaking. First we need only read all the words he has already spoken. All of the scripture is God-breathed, therefore all of it is his words which he inspired man to record. He dictated, they recorded. So we need to live in response to what he has said and that is recorded for us to read, the scriptures, the Bible. When we take all of it, the whole of it, there is really but one underlying truth God desires for us to know and understand, to respond to. He created us in his image to fellowship with, to enjoy. We are created for his pleasure, and he has always and will always desire to enjoy us. Yet man insisted on doing things his own way, but God has always provided a way for man to respond to him, to live for his pleasure, to live in fellowship with him, Jesus is that way. This is the whole of all that is written, a history of his creation. What he intended, what man did instead, and how God continued to make a way for man to return to what God intended. We only need to respond to God. The God who divided the waters with a great expanse, space and spoke all that is and will ever be into existence. How can we refuse such an awesome God? How can we believe anything other than his mighty power? How can we see with only our human eyes, our human mind, when we can understand just how enormous our God is? When we see in the Spirit, we can see the vastness of God. As all the universe responds to the words of God, that is all we can do as well, respond.