Focal passage: Genesis 1:1-5, 26-31
If you’ve ever been to an art museum, you have probably spent some time in front of a work of art wondering what the author’s intent may have been. Rarely do artists create arbitrarily, but they do so with a purpose. They want their art to serve a purpose or send a message. While we can speculate and draw conclusions about what earthly artists are trying to convey, we cannot fully know their mind. Only the artist themself has authority to definitively say the purpose of their creation.
In the same way, God created everything. The Word (Jesus) is the one through whom all things exist and are sustained (John 1:2-3, Colossians 1:15-17). Because God is the one who created everything, He is the one who decides how everything should work. He meticulously and purposefully created all things, and when He was done creating, He called them all “good.” When God fashioned human beings, He did so with roles and responsibilities in mind. Included are the expectations that we live rightly in relationship with Him and with His creation.
God created us in His image. He created us with thoughts, emotions and abilities. To be made in God’s image implies that we are created to be in relationship with Him. Even though sin has entered the world and has fractured that relationship, God still desires communion with His creation. God sent Jesus into the world to repair that broken relationship so that we can image God. We do this by living as He created us to live.
In Eden, God instructed Adam and Eve to fill the earth and subdue it. God gives us the same instructions today. He desires for us to honor Him by enjoying and caring for His creation. He is pleased when we are good stewards of His good world and when we delight in His gift of creation.