This morning I spent a few hours weeding our flower beds. While weeding I was meditating on the Bible lesson I'll be teaching tonight - the creation story from Genesis 1:1-25. I had several insights that I wanted to share with you.
First, I was thinking about how many times in that passage that God was separating something. He separated light from darkness, day from night, waters above from waters below, and water from land. Here I was separating weeds and grass from plants. I was thinking about how God also makes set apart, or holy.
Thinking about our holiness or "set apartness" made me think about the parable of the wheat and the tares. In that parable we learn that there are non-believers in among the believers and that God would separate them in the harvest. This is also established in Matthew 7 where we're told that many prophesy and cast out demons in His name, but at the judgment he'll say, "Depart from me for I never knew you." This had me thinking about our churches and wondering how many people are there that don't know God through faith in Jesus Christ. Said another way, I wondered how many people in our churches don't have saving faith. In my garden, there's more weeds than plants. Is it that way in the church too?
As I pulled weeds I also thought about how creative our God is. Do you know how many varieties of grass and weeds there are? Do you know how distinct pieces of the same type of weed can be from one another? In Genesis 1 it says He created grasses and plants that reproduce according to their kind. There are so many kinds, it's amazing! The differences in shades of green alone is amazing! Our God really went all out. I could also go on about all the different kinds of ants he's made, many of which emerged to display His glory as I was plucking weeds.
I also thought about sweat. You know there was this curse as a result of man's sin that had something to do with working by the sweat of the brow. Was my brow ever sweating! It had me wondering how much easier that work might have been had man never sinned. In fact, I started wondering if weeds themselves were not a result of the curse. Thank God that even though there's a curse for sin, in Christ there's redemption and blessing!
In the beginning God created.... and His creation is really amazing! He said, "Let there be light" and there was light. He said the light was good. He separated the light from the darkness. Even in my life I see Him separating light from darkness as I'm sanctified. Praise Him that the same grace that redeems us and separates us by declaring us just also separates us by conforming us into His image.
It's pretty cool what you can observe just weeding the garden!
