Why all of this talk about Creation? Remember that in John 5:45-47 Jesus says “For if you believed Moses, you would believe Me; for he wrote about Me. But if you do not believe his writings, how will you believe My words?” According to Jesus Himself, to the proportion we don’t believe the writings of Moses, to the same proportion we will not believe the sayings of Jesus! There is a generation that has been raised up in the religion of naturalism which says “don’t believe the bible.”

The bible says we should speak the truth in love. Why? Because if you remove love from the truth, it is no longer the “T” Truth! Likewise if you remove the truth out of love, it is no longer love. John 1:17 says “For the law was given through Moses, but grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.” In John 8:5, the Pharisees asked Jesus what He “Grace and Truth” says about the woman caught in the act of adultery. So what did Jesus (Grace and Truth) say to this woman? “Neither do I condemn you (GRACE)… go and SIN no more.” (TRUTH)  (John 8:11) Grace & Truth! The inability or unwillingness to correct is NOT love. Proverbs 24:23-25 says that if we will correct at the lead of the Lord, a delight is going to come on us and a special blessing is going to be given to us because we have partnered with that person’s heavenly Father who desires us to partner with Him in parenting His creation!

 

God is not so concerned about His Word being destroyed – He simply doesn’t want people to be destroyed. He is NOT willing that any should perish. So, is Genesis Literal about the 6 days of Creation? Dr. James Barr, Hebrew scholar and Oriel Professor at Oxford University, has written:(a) creation took place in a series of six days which were the same as the days of 24 hours we now experience; (b) the figures contained in the Genesis genealogies provided by simple addition a chronology from the beginning of the world up to latter stages in the biblical story . . .”  This is not defense of doctrine, but simply a commentary on the Hebrew text from a linguistic perspective. 

 

Should the creation account in Genesis be taken poetically? There is Hebrew poetry – many examples of which in the Old Testament are historically accurate. There is indeed poetry in Genesis. Genesis 4:23-24 is in poetic form. Genesis 1-3, however, is NOT in poetic form.

People will also ask if there are gaps in the Genesis 5 and 11 genealogies. Note that 1 Chronicles 1, Luke 3, and Jude 14 all site the Genesis 5 and 11 genealogies as literal, historical genealogies. Also note that while the bible contains many “lineage-establishing” genealogies, those lineage-type genealogies are not about years. There is something very different about the Genesis 5 and 11 genealogies in that they always say the age at which the next generation was “begat” or “fathered.” Why? Because you quickly add up the history. Genesis 5 and 11 represent what could be called a “chrono-genealogy.” They do not only establish lineage, but also a timeframe for the history of the earth. 

 

Now let’s look at the actual language of Genesis. The literal translation for Genesis 1:5 is “and evening was, and morning was, a day, one.” It’s clear as day! “Evening” means evening. “Morning” means morning! A day – one. God is so emphatic. Similarly telling, in Genesis 1:14 God, through Moses, uses the word “year” in the same verse as “day.” The same word for “day” (like in Genesis 1:5) is used all the way through the creation story in Genesis 1. In verse 14, the word for year and the word for day appear in the same verse. What does that tell us? Moses knew the word for year but chose not to use it throughout the description of the 6-literal-day creation event – because they were talking about days not years!

 

Genesis 2:3 “And on the seventh day God ended His work which He had done, and He rested on the seventh day from all His work which He had done.” This connected the sabbath of a week to the week of creation – not a coincidence. Speaking of the 6th day of creation, Genesis 5:1-2 twice says God created man in a day “…In the day that God created man, He made him in the likeness of God. He created them male and female, and blessed them and called them Mankind in the day they were created.”  In Exodus 20:11 we read what God Himself spoke to Moses “For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested the seventh day.” Day, day, day! They were 6 literal days!

 

But what about 2 Peter 3:8 where we read that “But, beloved, do not forget this one thing, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day.” Let’s look at that. There is a bit of a problem using 2 Peter 3:8 to try to “interpret” the days of creation because 2 Peter 3:8 says both (1) one day is as a thousand years, and (2) a thousand years is as one day. If 2 Peter 3:8 was meant to unlock a hidden timing in Genesis, it is awfully confusing! So, was God confused in the historical timeline He was giving us? No! 2 Peter 3:8 has NOTHING to do with the historical Genesis timeline. We must look at 2 Peter 3:8 in context! These verses are saying “don’t think that God is running late. He is not slack concerning His promise to come back and judge the world. He simply doesn’t want anybody to perish and He exists outside of time so it doesn’t hurt Him at all to take extra time so that more can come to repentance!” 

 

All of this is so you can total confidence in the Word of God! Now, what did Jesus say about the age of the earth? Let’s look at Mark 10:6 “But from the beginning of the creation, God ‘made them male and female.” What is the context of this conversation in Mark 10? Divorce – and therefore marriage. This is our Lord speaking! He said that people were made by God at the BEGINNING of creation. Jesus would NOT agree at all with any part of historical evolutionary theory! From the beginning of creation God made humans! So when did Homo sapiens appear? After the apes “evolved” for 3 million years? From the BEGINNING of creation man and woman have been on the earth – and marriage has been on earth! So encouraging!

There are three parts that make up who each of us are: spirit, soul, and body. As believers, our body - our skin, bones, tissue, and muscles - are the earthly dwelling for the Holy Spirit, and our soul is made up of our mind, our will, and our emotions. When we are born again, the thing that fundamentally changes upon being born again is our spirit. When we accept Christ into our life we become a new creation! (2 Cor. 5:17-18)

However, when we received the full portion of the Spirit of Christ, that did not necessarily transform our soul or our body immediately. 2 Corinthians 5:16 instructs us to “therefore, from now on, we regard no one according to the flesh.” When God looks upon this born again brother or sister, He sees Jesus, by virtue of His Spirit in them! We are urged to see them (and ourselves) likewise!

 

Now what the enemy will try to do, is to make us think otherwise about ourselves and about our other brothers and sisters in Christ around us. The enemy want to make us think that there is something at our core that is bad or evil. He wants to trick us into believing that all the thoughts that come into our head are really the “true you.” Those are lies he wants to sow into our heart about ourselves or those around us. He uses these lies to make us think that we need to “get more good” into us - that we have to try harder to make ourselves holy. That is the trap. That is religion. We have to fight against that because in fact, as born-again believers we have all the goodness, all the holiness, all the righteousness, all the perfection within us that we will ever need! We have the 100% Holy Spirit inside of us already! Rather than trying to “get good into us” we need to simply be letting that holiness of the Holy Spirit out of us! The bible is clear - we allow the goodness of God to be expressed in our lives by renewing our souls! (Rom. 12:2)

 

There are three ways we can be about the transformation of our souls. The core way is using the mirror of the Word and lining up with the Word. (2 Cor. 3:18) And the other to helping ways are by keeping / guarding our hearts and by managing / eradicating unbelief in our lives. This message is one of the most important ones a Christian can every know. As Hebrews 10:14 puts it “For by one offering He has perfected forever those who are being sanctified.”

We need to have an increase-profit mindset. Let’s translate that to the Gospel. If you don’t have a profit orientation—a prosperity orientation—about the things of the kingdom (healing, discipleship, etc.) it will hinder you actually serving people. 

In Luke 19:11-27, the master delivered a mina to each of His 10 servants. He said to them “Do business till I come.” The first two servants recorded here were faithful and profitable, but then we read about the last servant! Oh no.This servant came back with one mina in the handkerchief claiming he was afraid his master, but he was not afraid. That was not the problem. The master said “It wasn’t because you were afraid of me that this is what you did! If you were afraid of me you would have at least done this…” The issue was that the servant was disobedient. The one mina servant was deliberately disobedient. God had told him “do business till I come.” Did the servant listen to his master’s orders and do business? No, instead He was disobedient with the mina that he had been given. That is why the Lord called him wicked. He said to the wicked servant “you weren’t fearful, you weren’t anxious, you weren’t unequipped. You were disobedient.”

 

This servant may have even convinced himself that his inactivity was due to his master being a tough man. He may have believed his own lie. Proverbs 26:13 says “the sluggard says ‘there’s a lion in the street.” If we will do business with the mina that we have, we will be profitable. We will prosper! God has given us a mina in this body. He has given us our purity and knowledge of Him as a gift. Remember, this message is NOT a rebuke, just a gear the Lord is wanting us to shift into. Remember the word from the beginning—that’s the heart! We need to get in business with the mina that we’ve been given! Many of us are already in business on some level. But, as a church, we are supposed to grow in numbers. Look at Acts. Our church has not been growing in numbers so we are missing something. 

 

If a church did not have a powerful, life-changing message…if a church did not have a product that was amazing, you could see how it might not grow. But if a church has a tremendous product, a life changing message that it’s members have experienced—if we know and have experienced that God is completely GOOD and we are willing to carry this message to others that “you too can experience His Goodness”, then the only hindrance to that message taking off is it getting in front of PEOPLE!

It’s the most riveting thing in the world to follow God! In Matthew 4:19 Jesus said, “Follow Me, and I will make you fishers of men.” When you follow Jesus, He will make you a fisher of men. Your action verb is to FOLLOW. His action verb is to MAKE.

In Joshua 1:10-11 we read that “Joshua commanded the officers of the people, saying, “Pass through the camp and command the people, saying, ‘Prepare provisions for yourselves, for within three days you will cross over this Jordan, to go in to possess the land which the Lord your God is giving you to possess.’” Get ready Agathos! God’s going somewhere and He wants us to get ready. Remember, God works on people; His focus of influence is individual. This is why we will all stand before God individually in front of His throne. Our church will come with Him if EACH person comes with Him. 

Peter’s life and his history of following Jesus provide an illustrative example. Following Christ always means stopping following something else. Peter chose Jesus. He could honestly tell Jesus that he had “left everything” to follow Christ. He forsook all. He left his nets. Nevertheless, Jesus said to Peter, “Whoever desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me.’” (Mark 8:34) There was something going on in Peter’s heart to which Jesus was saying “I know you think you want to follow Me, but you want to follow your version of Me.”

In John 13:37, Peter asks Jesus “Lord, why can I not follow You?” If we follow Him, He will make us fishers of men, but Jesus says, “If you want to come after Me” you need to (1) deny yourself, (2) take up your cross, and (3) follow Me. You have to do a “denying” and a “taking up” before you can do a following. Eventually Peter’s shadow healed all it touched, but at this point Peter had not left this one idea about who the Messiah ought to be to him! 

In all of our genuineness, why can’t we follow Jesus sometimes? There are three hindrances that can exist in our hearts to keep us from actually following Jesus. These are blind spots. Peter was genuine, but he couldn’t follow Jesus because of a mindset. Peter had not denied his own ideas, taken up his cross, and actually followed the real Jesus. 

(1) The first hindrance is being given to the opinions of people. John 5:44 says, “How can you believe, who receive honor from one another, and do not seek the honor that comes from the only God?” If satan can’t control you, he will seek to control you through people.

(2) The second hindrance is riches. The Word of God is clear: “you cannot serve both God and Mammon.” Mammon is controlling a lot of believers. We want to be in the flow of realizing that God will supply for you supernaturally to create flexibility in order that you can accomplish His Great Commission.

(3) A third hindrance is self-preservation, or as Mark 4:18-19 calls it “the desire for other things.” You have to leave something in order to follow a new thing. If you will follow Christ, I can promise you what He will do: He will make you a fisher of men! But you cannot follow two things simultaneously: “No one can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or else he will be loyal to the one and despise the other.” (Mt. 6:24) We all want to serve God, so let’s remove any hindrances!

“But the gateway to life is very narrow and the road is difficult, and only a few ever find it.” (Mt. 7:14, NLT) When we think that the road is supposed to be easy we are set up for disappointment and a lack of staying power. The path to experiencing true life here on earth is going to be difficult. (Jn. 16:33) But, the life you really want is down that difficult path! Pain is inevitable, but gain is optional. When we run away from the difficulties of life, life is hard. When we press into the difficulties of life, life is easy. When we stop frantically trying to preserve our lives (avoid pain) there will be nothing that we are afraid of! The result of pressing into seeing change in our hearts is that good things begin to happen! Change is hard, but we are not alone. We can invite a truth teller, someone who believes in you, to start speaking into your life so that they can push us beyond our own limitations. And we can invite the one will "never leave us nor forsake us" into every difficult place as well. Lean into the squeeze, the difficulty, the struggle, and you are going to find zoe life on the other side of it!

If we approach finances with the mindset that God wants us to have, His blessing in our life will be a pure joy.  God takes pleasure in the prosperity of His servants. (Ps. 35:27) We should NEVER allow money to become our source! Once we realize that God is our source, we can move into the promised land where God will promote us because He knows the riches won’t then destroy us.  With that mindset, we can begin to build our house of blessing according to the financial principles of the kingdom. The foundational kingdom principle about finances is the tithe. Many believers have no objection to the tithe, but there are some believers that do object to it. The number one objection to the tithe that some have is that they believe that it is “from the Law.” So, is tithing, in fact, from the LAW? The scriptural answer to that is NO! Tithing is in fact, not from the Law! Gen. 4:2-5, Gen 14:18-20, and Gen 28:20-22 give three examples of tithing hundreds and even thousands of years before the law. Additionally, Heb. 7:4-9 speaks clearly about tithing after Christ fulfilled the Law.The tithe is a gift from the Lord to set His people free and in return He gives them blessing. Tithing was taking place before the Law, through the Law, and  after the Law - the tithe is not from the Law!

In Genesis 4, we see that God respected Abel's offering, but did not respect Cain's offering. Why? The difference was attitude. Abel's attitude was "Lord, everything that comes to me, I'm bringing you the first and the best of it!" Cain's attitude towards his offering was slack by comparison. Like Abel, we too can have a respect and honor regarding every blessing that comes into our lives. There is nothing inherently wrong with money - quite the contrary because God created it! The Word of God does warn us about pursuing God for the purpose of financial gain (1 Tim 6:6-10) and also about making money our god (Mark 10:21-24), but we should not erroneous interpret those warnings as God being against money. There is a way that money can be used beautifully and in accordance with God's design: knowing that He's our source, that all blessing comes from Him, and that we are blessed in order to be a blessing. With a right perspective about money, the financial principles of the Kingdom of God will take effect in your life because you'll be lined up with the Kingdom of God!

It is God's desire that His children would be blessed in every area of life - and that of course includes the area of finances. The reality is you cannot live, eat, or have shelter and clothes without money (yours or someone else's). You cannot feed the poor, clothe the naked, or "go into all the world" without money. God put gold in the earth and told Adam that it was "good." (see Gen. 2:12) Money is good, but it's not the whole thing either. There are many things far more important than money. God is not opposed to us having things, but He is opposed to things having us. When you prioritize money with God, you will get off track with God. But, God is for riches when our heart is right!

Since you did not make yourself, you cannot tell yourself what your purpose is. If we seek out His purposes for us and then walk according to those purposes, then and only then will we find true fulfillment. According to Jesus, the number one reason He came was to reveal the Father - to glorify the Father. Jesus understood that the only way He could glorify (reveal) the Father was to allow the Father to glorify Him. (Jn 17:1) Yet, we have a mindset in the Body of Christ (as a whole) that God is interested in our needs but not in our wants. Jn 15:7-8 speaks differently: "If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you, you will ask what you desire, and it shall be done for you. By this My Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit; so you will be My disciples." When we don't ask Him what we desire, we are actually stealing an opportunity for God to be glorified.