It speaks of Ownership, of Supremacy, of Power, of Ability and there are many other things which it encompasses. No wonder then that many of the New Testament authors point to creation as God's first attempt to reveal something of Himself and nature to humanity.
Yet, our Creator did not just create; He loved and loved supremely.
Years ago, a little boy had built a toy boat complete with a fabric sail and shiny paint job. One day, while playing with the boat in a nearby creek, a great gush of wind came and it escaped the boy's sight. He tried to find it, tried to chase it down; finally, he caught a glimpse of the boat as it headed out to the river which was much more swift and deep.
The boy was devastated, believing he'd never have the boat again.
He rejected proposals to build another one like it, knowing it wouldn't be the same. It would not be that boat. That boat was his heart's desire. He didn't want another. He didn't want one like it.
He wanted the boat he had built himself.
Several months later, with his mother at a yard sale on the other side of town, the boy was shocked to find the boat he created in a box of discarded toys. He tried to explain what had happened but the woman in charge of the sale didn't buy his story.
So, the boy ran back home, cracked open his piggy bank, scraped together the $10 the woman wanted and retrieved his boat.
As he was going home with the boat, his mother overheard him say - 'Now you're twice mine: I created you for myself and now I have bought you with all I could give. You'll be mine forever.'
Amazingly, that is what God says about us.He created us and then He purchased us with the blood of all He had to give - His only son.
Yet, God would not have had to purchase us if the right order was obeyed and the fall had never happened.
Order, whether in the universe or in church or in school houses, order depends on right relationships. When the fall of man occurred, it destroyed the rightness of our relationship with our Holy God.
Through Christ and His offer of salvation, we are given the restoration of that right relationship with our Creator God.
But it goes further.
If a person is a Christian, a satisfactory spiritual life begins with a complete change between man and His Creator.A person may believe, but if a moral change hasn't taken place, we must ask if the Holy Spirit is being quenched within the man's soul.
This change is made possible because of the Atonement of Jesus Christ; again, it is possible. But it isn't always the reality.
One of our great challenges as believers is not to settle for second best when it comes to Christ; we should always strive for the greatest relationship we can have in Christ with God. And if we strive for this, we will soon find out that it is this relationship which is greater than any other relationship we can ever have.
All relationships begin somewhere; they start at some point and for some reason.
There is a fixed center when it comes to spirituality just as there is a fixed center for every relationship and every activity.
Before the advent of GPS, soldiers were trained (when temporarily disoriented but never lost) to use a map and a compass to find where they were.
The soldier would pick out two points on the map, shoot the azimuth, plot the coordinates and where they intersected, that is the location of the person.
I remember in Basic Training, Fort Knox 1994 (Huah), I became fairly proficient; I can still do this today.
The navy didn't have this option.
In the old days they either read the sun's location or waited until the night fall to be able to calculate their position on the sea. And while this is slightly different, millions of seamen throughout the centuries were able to find their fixed center.
But regardless of what branch a person may serve in, there is always a manual way without modern technology to be able to find your fixed center and location.
When it comes to spirituality, there is only one fixed center - God Himself.
While we may lose our place, our moral bearings are always reset and established when we solely look to God.
This seems so simple and easy - and it is but so many times we neglect the one answer that is right in front of our faces. Christ is the answer and it is in Him by which our moral equilibrium is set.
I have found that many of our problems in life and in our own hearts are due to not accepting God as He is and then adjusting ourselves to that fixed point.
Instead, we insist on trying to mesh God into our image rather than seeking His Spirit to conform us to His image and His perfection.
With God being who and what He is, the only way we can have our bearings right and the right relationship established and maintained between us is when we have complete submission to His full Lordship over our lives.
In the moment we decide to do this - to have our total personality of self conformed to Him, we step out of this world of death and step towards His Kingdom and the eternity of life.
And Jesus proclaimed the great promise of this event:
John 5:24
"Truly, truly, I say to you, he who hears My word, and believes Him who sent Me, has eternal life, and does not come into judgment, but has passed out of death into life.
When we break with the world for a greater and more abundant life - it is a direct result of our change in our hearts because our relationship to God has changed.
Now, when we come to this point in our lives, many Christians begin to look around and see other people calling Jesus 'LORD' but question the commitment of others.
This is something we must fight against because it produces a very judgmental attitude; the rule of thumb is to remember that we may not like something our brother/sister does, but we are to leave it to God as to why he/she has done it.
And that is very hard to do.
As one has rightly said:
To dwell above with those we love, that will be glory.
But to serve below with those we know - that's another story.
But it is true that there are many within the church who only pay Christ a token respect.
There is a simple test that each Christian should test themselves with and judge themselves with. It is a test of choice.
We are given in life a choice between God and money; between God and men; between God and personal ambition; between God and human love - and the list is never ending.
The determining factor in this test - who will take Second Place.
The other one is Lord in your life.
If you have your personal bearings centered on God, you may make mistakes but you will be well grounded in Him and in your relationship with Him.
But let me say this - no man has ever lost anything by giving it over to God. Our test is a test of choices; one is the Lord and the other is something else which we must give over to Him.
If you give something to Him, you never lose it.
Nothing is ever restored to the right order, right relationship until the heart is made right.
By the Holy Spirit, God wants to make your heart right with Him.
It's not about just the mind. It's not just about the heart.
It is the mind and heart being quickened to life and to service by the Spirit of God as He centers us on Him and guides us forward in a right relationship with Him.
To each He has given the option - seek Him and choose wisely because He wants to 'twice by His' through faith in His Son and Creation by His hand.
Until next time, try to win one for the good guys.
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