Great VersesSample

In the beginning

In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.

The Bible begins with this simple, sublime statement. In the beginning, there is God. Before anything else, there is God. Above everything else, there is God. Behind everything else, there is God. He is the uncreated Creator of all creation. The Bible begins with God. Above all else, the Bible is a book about God. This is God’s story, God’s revelation, God’s book. The Bible never argues for God’s existence. It assumes God’s existence. Down deep, every human knows that God exists, that God is Creator.

To say that God created the heavens, and the earth is to say that God created the vast universe that is staggering in size. Yet God created it without any effort whatsoever. When we look at creation all around us, we see God’s glory. We see God’s thumbprint. We see his power, his beauty, his majesty, and his vastness. How great is our God!

The poet Gerard Manley Hopkins wrote, “The world is charged with the grandeur of God.” Elizabeth Barrett Browning penned the words: “Earth’s crammed with heaven, and every common bush aflame with God: But only he who sees, takes off his shoes, the rest sit round it and pluck blackberries.” The preacher Jonathan Edwards put it simply: “Nature is God’s greatest evangelist.”

That God is Creator means that God made us. You belong to him because he made you. You are accountable to worship him, to serve him, to obey him. He is your God. Everything begins right here with the truth of creation. That God is Creator is essential to God’s nature. No wonder Satan opposes this truth in any way possible. No wonder the Bible begins with, “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.”