Monday, August 10, 2026

           One important tenet of the Christian faith is this: God is our creator.  We believe that God made the heavens and the earth.  God made everything.  When it comes to seeing God as our Creator, we usually turn the Bible to Genesis and read the opening couple of chapters.  But the truth of God being our Creator is taught more broadly in Scripture than just being confined to the first two chapters of Genesis.  The law, prophets, wisdom books, gospel and letters all confirm the same reality—God is the maker of all things.  In Jeremiah 10, we can read about God’s creative power.  The prophet wrote, “But God made the earth by his power; he founded the world by his wisdom and stretched out the heavens by his understanding” (10:12).  Jeremiah used three key words, verbs, to indicate the actions that God took in creation.  He wrote that God “made,” “founded” and “stretched.” 
            The word “made” means to establish.  God has created all that we see, know and enjoy.  The earth is not here by accident or some random chance.  God willed and spoke the creation into existence.  He provided the foundations for the creation to rest upon. When God speaks, the power of His Word causes things to happen.  The word “founded” means that God made the earth take shape and form.  Literally, He made the creation to stand up and be seen.  You may remember that Jesus commanded a sick man at the Pool of Bethesda to get up or to stand up (see John 5).  We see the power of Jesus’ spoken Word.  The Son of God spoke and reality changed for one man who had been crippled for thirty-eight years.  He would stand—something that moments earlier would have been impossible for him to do.  The word “stretched” means to spread out or to extend.  It can mean to incline or extend out—much like you might lean out to pick up something just beyond your reach or stretch to reach something on a store shelf.  God has extended out the limits of the creation.  The whole universe—beyond our ability to measure or calculate—has expanded at God’s direction and command.  The boundaries of the universe are far beyond anything we could reach.
            How is God able to do these things?  How does God act in ways beyond the human ability to understand?  Jeremiah 10:6 gives us the answer.  The prophet wrote, “No one is like you, Lord; you are great, and your name is mighty in power.”  God created simply because He willed to do so.  He acted because it was His prerogative to do so.  Our response is to marvel at His greatness and power.  Our response is to exalt His greatness. We do this on Sundays as we gather with other believers to worship the Lord and give Him His due honor and praise.  We exalt Him when we are overwhelmed by some beauty that we find in creation.  We exalt Him when we bow before Him to acknowledge that His ways and thoughts are far, far greater than ours.
            Maybe even more amazing than the material creation is God’s creation of human life.  Jeremiah wrote, “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born, I set you apart” (Jeremiah 1:5).  God knew Jeremiah before He was formed and before He was born.  But knew you before you were formed and born too.  He knew the number of your days and the breaths that you would take.  He knew you would sin and need the saving cross and blood of His Son.  He knew you would need to be ransomed from sin and saved from His wrath.  God knew.  Yet, God still made you.  He created you and gave you the breath of life—the breath He gave to Adam.  If you are even tempted to diminish or devalue human life, remember soberly that God is the Author of human life.  Apart from Him, there is no life.  God is our maker.  Pride and sin often rob us from the joy and confidence that we find in knowing and remembering that God is our maker.  Remind yourself today that God made you.  You are not an accident, a cosmic mix-up or an afterthought.  You are made and loved by the same Lord who placed the stars in the sky. Have a great Monday!