I’ve set a goal this year to read through the Bible chronologically. While you can use a plan to check off, I found it’s easier for me to use a Bible that is formatted in this way.  I’m using The Daily Bible in the NIV.

I haven’t read through the entire Bible in a couple of years, and I’m looking forward to the discipline and routine of it. Although I’m always involved in various studies throughout the year, it’s refreshing to read through God’s Word and remember that it’s one complete story. Jesus is the center of it, but it’s yours and mine, too. It tells us who we are, where we came from, why we exist, and what our future will be. It’s the unfolding of God’s plan of redemption and the revelation of His glory in the world He created.

Today’s read is Genesis 1-3, and creation is the keyword.

In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth (Genesis 1:1).

Such a simple statement, yet one that is mocked, scorned, denied, and disparaged as foolish nonsense believed only by fools. Well, I guess I’m a fool.

Satan has worked very hard over the past centuries to dispel the notion that God exists, that He created, and that He is still sovereignly active in His creation. But we know differently. If you’ve met and received Christ Jesus as your Savior, you know “from whence you came.”

As I read through this first chapter, I was reminded that while God finished His creative work on our environment, He continues to make “new creations” today.

2 Corinthians 5:17 – Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creature; the old things passed away; behold, new things have come.

The New Testament goes to great lengths to describe what happens when a person receives salvation. Our old life is crucified with Christ, and we are “born again” (John 3) and raised to walk in “newness of life (Romans 6:4-6). We are to “put on the new self, which in the likeness of God has been created in righteousness and holiness of the truth” (Ephesians 4:24). We “have put on the new self who is being renewed to a true knowledge according to the image of the One who created [us]” (Colossians 3:10).

Many things in the original creation story illustrate the new creation. Here are just a few that came to mind as I read Genesis 1.

Before creation, the world was formless, empty, and covered in darkness. However, the Spirit of God hovered over it, just as God’s Spirit must draw near to us before we can be saved.

God separated the light from the darkness—exactly what happens when the Light of the World, Jesus, enters our world. He exposes the darkness, and when we turn to Him, defeats and overcomes all the darkness in our lives.

God gathered the waters together, exposing the dry ground and creating the seas. This reminds us that after salvation, there is a natural pull on our souls to separate ourselves from the world and gather with our brothers and sisters. We are drawn to one another by the Holy Spirit that lives in us.

God gave lights to dispel the darkness each morning and govern the night and day. When we are recreated in His image, He gives us the Light of the Holy Spirit to lead us. He also says His Word is our lamp to our feet and a light to our path.

God created the original world to procreate and continue His creative process. Everything He made was designed to reproduce—the plants of the field were made with seeds that would fall into the ground and make more fruit, the animals would bear young, and Adam and Eve would come together as one flesh and fill the earth with people. In the same way, those who are saved are to reproduce, to bear fruit that remains (John 15). This fruit is spiritual fruit (Galatians 5:22-23), but it also includes the tangible fruit of new believers as we share the gospel story and others come to faith.

God is a creative God. He is an artist, a sculptor, a painter, and His best work was you and me. We are His “masterpiece” (Ephesians 2:10). He was intentional and sovereign in our original creation and is just as intentional and sovereign in our re-creation through faith in Jesus.

The next time you see something beautiful in the world around you, remember that the God who made it is the same God who made you. The fact that you exist is evidence that there is a God, and He is still making things new.