GOD’S LOVE — CREATION THROUGH ETERNITY

By Jill Roberts and Michael Canalé

 

This week’s blog definitely has a backstory and an intentionalIty about it that is unprecedented in our blogs. It marks an end and a new beginning. A year ago, Michael and I began this journey and glorious adventure in the blog-writing world. We both love it and, prayerfully, hope that we have, through the power of the Holy Spirit, imparted some wisdom along the way. With you, the readers’ amazing encouragement as to the spiritual value of these writings, we are publishing blogs 1 – 53 in an upcoming book with a working title of , “A Year With God,” Volume 1. Apparently, we are not the first authors to like this title, so, it is possibly subject to change.

 

Michael and I began the blogs just after Easter of 2021, and, therefore, it seemed to be a perfect point to close out Volume One. All of this is leading up to Volume Two which begins with this week’s blog. Michael, who you recall, chooses the subject matter about which we write each week, said with regard to this blog, that we should begin Volume Two where all of humanity began – with God’s love in the Old Testament and, specifically, with Creation itself. What a perfect Scriptural place to begin again.

 

What we believe is most remarkable about God’s Creation of the Universe and, ultimately, the genesis of mankind, is twofold. First, we turn to the power of the threefold Godhead and Their creation of a world so vast and varied that it takes our breath away in attempting to conceive of the inconceivable.

 

However, as mind-bending, as stunning, as this physical aspect of Creation is, it almost pales in comparison to the emotional leap of love that God looked at and labeled VERY good – mankind. Why do we say this? We say it for one singular reason: the unabridged foreknowledge of God. Michael and I are referring, specifically, to the fact that, before He flung a single star onto the backdrop of the void, there would come a time when the Godhead, working in collaboration, would create a mankind imbued with free will.

 

((We say collaboration because, as Pastor Josh Harrison, explains, “The Holy Spirit was hovering, God the Father was speaking and Jesus was working.” How was Jesus working? Speaking of Jesus’ work, John writes in his Gospel,

 

“Through him, all things were made; without him, nothing was made that has been made.”

(John 1:3) NIV)

 

God, the Father, spoke, Jesus worked and, in full agreement, created humanity. The question is, compared to the creation of two hundred billion galaxies in our observable Universe, (Our source, Brilliant Blunders by Mario Livio)

how is it we find MORE remarkable, the creation of mankind? As we said, it is because of the foreknowledge of God Who could see, with crystal clarity, a Roman cross.

 

Do you recall how Jesus cautioned those considering following him, to “count the cost?” ( Luke 14:28) NIV. Well, surely he learned this concept from his Father:

 

“I tell you, the Son can do nothing by himself; he can do only what he sees his Father doing, because whatever the Father does, the Son also does.”

(John 5:19) NIV

 

In the creation of mankind, God “counted the cost,” of where He knew this was going. When all was idyllic in The Garden of Eden, God saw another Garden – Gethsemane. He could already see His beloved and only Son,

 

“Going a little farther, he fell with his face to the ground and prayed, ‘My Father, if it is possible, may this cup be taken from me. Yet, not as I will, but as you will.”

(Matthew 26:39) NIV

 

Long before this conversation, God the Father and Jesus, both knowing the agony down time, agreed to create us and not just create us like some future sinners, bereft of redeeming qualities. This is where Creation really becomes remarkable:

 

“Then God said, ‘Let US make mankind in OUR image, in OUR likeness…” (emphasis added)

(Genesis 1:26) NIV.

 

How many times have we all read these words and yet, perhaps, not pondered them? God, KNOWING our future rebellion and sin, made us to be like Them, like the Trinity. What is it, really, to be created in the image of another? The dictionary states that it is to bear,

 

“a PHYSICAL LIKENESS or REPRESENTATION of a person…” (emphasis added)

 

Additionally, and even more illustrative, an image is,

 

“an optical COUNTERPART or appearance…as is produced by REFLECTION FROM A MIRROR.” (emphasis added)

 

Yes, we were purposely created to be a mirror’s image of the Trinity! We are image beaters of our Creators.

 

Returning to the first definition, we are a representation of the triune Godhead. What is it to represent someone? In the legal realm, when one represents another in court, that representative states on the record, for example, “Your name, appearing on behalf of …” It is the same spiritually: We appear, in our thoughts, in our relationships, in everything we do and with whom we interact, “on behalf of God, the Father, Jesus and the Holy Spirit.” Why? It is for one reason and only one reason: Because God created us to do this, having made us in Their images. What a profound privilege and honor but what a responsibility!

 

Wait a minute, one might say, if God KNEW at our moment of creation that we were going to sin so egregiously as to put Jesus on the cross, how is it that He would want us to represent Him, to be made in His image? What kind of God would do this? The answer is – One Who loves us and sees in us a divine potential. This is true despite how completely He knows us. How completely is this? David, whose life was one of great highs and deep lows, described God’s knowledge about us in the iconic Psalm 139. How well he described God’s attention to the details of our lives:

 

“You have searched me, Lord,

and you know me.

You know when I sit and when I rise;

You perceive my thoughts from afar.

You discern my going out and my lying down;

You are familiar with all my ways…

For you created my inmost being;

you knit me together in my mother’s womb.

I praise you because I am fearfully and

wonderfully made…

(Yes, in His image!)

Your eyes saw my unformed body;

all the days ordained for me were

written in your book

before one of them came to be.”

(Psalm 139:1-3, 13-14, 16) NIV

 

There are no surprises with God; there are no shadows into which He cannot see. Whatever is happening in our lives is on His radar. If it’s on our minds, He’s on the case AND He has a perfect plan. That’s love and it is one for the ages.

 

This week, I read an interesting article which sheds light on this. It is titled, “10 Stories in the Bible to Help You Remember God Loves You,” by Kristi Woods. It illuminates Michael’s and my statement that God has a perfect plan for our lives. What makes it perfect? Many aspects of it do this; one of these is brought out in the above-cited article:

 

“Our Father loves us enough to write an ORIGINAL STORY for each of us. That’s love .“

(emphasis added)

 

No one’s story is the same. We are like story snowflakes, unique to ourselves.

 

Before Creation even began, God’s foreknowledge reached into the eternal disposition of the soul – far beyond this Earth, a split second in time. At the moment of Creation, God looked into how He designed it – us being with Him forever. In Eden, when man pitted themselves against the wiles of Satan, God looked ahead to our eternity with Him. When mankind continued its rebellion so that God the Father’s Jesus, was sent to Earth and to a Roman cross, God saw the Resurrection of His Son and, in the distance, the result: the victory over death for mankind and the eternal life Jesus purchased for us. Beyond even the cross, AT THE MOMENT OF CREATION, God looked far down the road to the Second Coming of Jesus and a New Heaven and a New Earth:

 

“Then I, (John), saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away…And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, ‘Look! God’s dwelling place is now among the people and he will dwell with them. They will be his people and God himself will be with them and be their God. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away. He who was seated on the throne said, ‘I am making EVERYTHING NEW.’ Then he said, write this down, for the words are trustworthy and true.”

(emphasis added)

(Revelation 21:1, 3-5) NIV

 

Michael and I have written this down, today, in this blog. All of this, was in the visage of God , In the broad sweep of history, before one star was created, before there was created a sky in which to hang that one star. God saw the entire epic of us, mankind, and, looking upon our creation, called it “VERY good.”

 

Scripture is silent about the particulars of how we will spend our eternity. To quote from my book, How to Find God in Under Five Hours,

 

“ We can only imagine exactly what it will be like, but, with certainty, it will involve lives of great purpose, excitement and joy. There will be no saints sitting on clouds playing harps for all eternity. God help us! Who came up with such an image! What an outrageous misrepresentation of our adventurous, exciting, genius, loving God the Father, Jesus and the Holy Spirit. Whenever you have been the happiest in your life – it will be like that but millions of times better.”

 

THIS is where God saw us at Creation – in our glorified bodies and representing Him in some work yet to be known by us. THIS is why He said that we would be created in the image of the Godhead. We represent Him now and we will then. We appear on His behalf now and we will then. That’s how God wanted it before any of it came to be.

 

It is a love story, the one for the ages.

 

POSTSCRIPT

There will not be a blog next week. I will be on a ranch in Kansas visiting my daughter, Caity.

 

The following week, by the grace of God, Michael and I will continue with what will ultimately, be Volume Two of the blog. We have looked across history in this week’s blog. For the next year, we will look at how God’s love and plan took shape through time and the details of His manifestation in the lives He created. It is the drama of the ages and Michael and I are both honored and joyful to bring it to you through the spiritual lenses of our faithful friend, His Holy Spirit. Thank you, beautiful readers for the association.