In times past, when I thought about the Genesis account of creation my attention seemed to always gravitate towards the fall of man in the Garden. Questions would immediately flood my mind such as: “How could Adam fall like he did?” “Why didn’t Adam just run the devil out of the Garden?” All my attention seemed to be focused on man and what he did and didn’t do.
Something has begun to change in the way I am looking at that entire account of creation. My focus of attention has begun to shift from man and his failures to God and His Love. Now, instead of trying to see everything through man’s eyes, I am catching glimpses through God’s eyes. Believe me, when you can finally start appreciating the depth of God’s love for man and stop just focusing on man’s failure you are on your way to knowing your Father more intimately than ever before.
Man is always so “I” focused that when he looks at Adam he identifies with Adam’s failure. He loses sight of the fact that God’s greatness and His abounding love for man is on display as clearly in the Garden as ever. For a moment, take your eyes off man and look at God. See Him for who He is. Stop trying to measure God with terms that only exist in this world. See Him for who He is beyond the four walls of this creation.
God exists outside the limits of time and space. This means that if you had the ability to look in each direction, past and future, you would never arrive at a place where God has not already existed forever. God is omnipresent. You might ask yourself why it is that you can not see a God who exists everywhere and the answer would be that He exists in a realm that operates just beyond our ability to see with the naked eye. He lives just beyond the speed of light making it impossible for man to see Him. So, at some point man became subject to the speed of light barrier and his ability to see an omnipresent God stopped. We do see instances where for a brief moment man has been allowed to experience travel at God’s speed in the accounts of people like Philip who were translated. Philip moved from one place to another instantly because he was allowed to briefly experience moving above the speed of light.
Likewise, God has no need for a wristwatch. Time exists in our world because God created a planet that revolves around a sun. Prior to the fall when everything still existed in a state of perfection and there was no decay man would have lived indefinitely and not suffered the effects of the aging process. The introduction of sin changed all that. The instant Adam fell all of creation immediately began a count down process to total destruction. All the while as creation continues its steady decent to destruction, God remains unchanged, constant, as He has always been. That is, except for the fact that the second member of the Godhead stepped out of His realm and into ours. It wasn’t that God tried to coexist with man in His “original” form. That would have been like trying to mix oil and water. They just don’t mix. One member of the Godhead, Jesus, willingly stepped out of His realm never to return in the same way again. He stepped out of His realm that He always, always, always existed in to become one of His own creation living in a world set for destruction. Here is what you must see. You must see the reason God was willing to do what He did. What motivation could be so strong that God Himself willingly set this creation into motion knowing forever in both directions that the instant He did it He would eventually be required to pay the price Himself for the failure of His own creation? Only one motivation could be so strong. Love. God does not have love God is Love. Love spoke the creation into being. Love placed man in the Garden to fellowship with Him. Love even set into motion the plan of redemption way back in the Garden when God told satan that one would come who would “…bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel.” (Genesis 3:15) Man had just betrayed God and yet immediately Love provided man with the way back to Himself.
To think, all of this, all of what we know and see was done for the sake of Love. Love that goes far beyond what fallen man calls love. This Love willingly altered Himself in order that He could finally end up with someone who would freely love Him in return. Not manipulated or coerced in any way because love that is made to love is not love at all. This is love that is born out of a heart of gratitude for a Creator who willing died for His creation. Is this the love that you have inside you for your Father? It has cost God literally everything to finally have a person who will lift up his hands for no other reason but loves sake alone and tell Him how much he loves Him.
I believe all of heaven surges with excitement when one child of God looks to heaven and worships the Father and the Son because God finally has the unsolicited, free will offering of love for which He has longed.
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