“Creator God” Genesis 1:1, 26-27; 2 Corinthians 5:17

As the calendar changes from September to October, we find ourselves in the heart of the Fall season. It’s one of my favorite times of the year, in part because we are coming closer to Thanksgiving. Yes, I know we still have Columbus Day and Halloween before we get to Thanksgiving, but in my world, the first of October marks the beginning of the Thanksgiving season.

Paul tells us we are to present our prayers and petitions with thanksgiving to God (cf. Philippians 4:6). It is right that we find time always to thank God for all He does for us. There is nothing sadder than a Christian who has no concept of gratitude in his or her heart.

Along with thanksgiving, though, there should also be praise. There is a difference between the two. I have heard it explained that we praise God for who and what He is, while we thank Him for what He does. So praise focuses on the qualities of God, while thanksgiving concentrates on God’s actions. With that in mind, there is much for us to give God both praise and thanks.

Today, we focus on Creator God and consider why His creative nature is worthy of praise, and why His creating acts are worthy of thanks.

Central Truth: God the Creator is worthy of praise and thanksgiving because He creates us in His image.

We praise and thank God because:

He is Creator (Gen. 1:1)

There is something about creativity that always draws my attention and appreciation. Looking at a piece of art, such as a painting, a sculpture or a song or poem, I find myself really enjoying the artist and the work. There are some artists that really appeal to me, and there are some works that frankly baffle me. I realize Picasso is a great artist, but I just don’t understand his work. E.E. Cummings is supposed to be a great poet, but for the life of me, it escapes me. That’s not to say I don’t appreciate their efforts, but I don’t understand them, and that frustrates me. Just the fact that someone is able to come up with a story or a drawing or a song or some other creative work makes me appreciate the creative spirit of the artist.

It’s the same with God’s creative nature. Looking at artists in our world, we can see how a person becomes inspired by someone or something. But with God, He created our world out of nothing. What was His inspiration? He didn’t have a template to consider as He shaped the stars and the planets. He didn’t have some other work to use as a basis for inspiration. When God created everything from the smallest sub-atomic particles to the largest galaxies, He came up with it all in His mind as the first creator of all these things. Once we come to that realization, how can we do anything else but praise Him as Creator?

Look at the things He has created. Consider the variety and the enormity of His work. He created clouds and grass and birds and fish and sunsets and valleys and mountains. He created vast oceans and small ponds, sweeping prairies and secluded glades. There is every variety of animal and plant. The way He uses water to shape our world and transform it is truly amazing.

And then we consider the people He made. Looking at each other, we are reminded that no two people are exactly alike. There are billions of people in our world, and each one is unique. We look differently, speak differently, perceive the world differently. Each of us has our own stories and our own worlds, and God is the one who created it all.

A quick reading of Genesis 1 lets us know that this creative process was reasoned and rational. First, God made the heavens and the earth. He separated the waters, and created land. Upon this land, He created plants. Having created the plants, both on land and in the seas, He created the animals that dwell in the land, the seas and the skies. And finally He created us. He made everything ready for us before He made us. He prepared His creation to receive us, and He gave us dominion over His creation, to act as stewards of all He has done.

Consider the creative genius that is God, and how we can do anything other than praise Him?

He created us in His image (Gen. 1:26-27)

While it is true that each person is different, it is also true that we are all similar. Our similarity is not in the fact that we all have two eyes and ears, that we have noses in the middle of our faces and other physical similarities. No, the similarity we celebrate through praise and thanksgiving is that God created us in His image. In so creating us, God enables us to have fellowship with Him through the spiritual aspect of our makeup.

When God created us, He made us with a soul, a body and a spirit. The soul encompasses the personality of each person. Within our soul lives our thoughts, our hopes, our dreams, our fears, our doubts—that which makes us uniquely us. Our bodies are what we use to have our soul relate to our world. With our body, we communicate with one another, we interact with nature and we express ourselves.

But it is with the soul that God creates us in His image. Jesus tells us that God is spirit, and He is to be worshiped in spirit and in truth (cf. John 4:23-24), and when God said in Genesis, “Let us make man in our own image,” that’s what He was talking about. He wanted to gives us a spirit in order that our soul can express ourselves to God and so we can receive from Him as well. It is with this spirit that we communicate with God, that we fellowship with God, that we relate to God.

And it is the soul that dies when we sin. Adam and Eve’s bodies continued on after they had taken the forbidden fruit, but their spirits had died. It is through Christ Jesus that God enables our spirits to live again. By His sacrificial work, Jesus makes it possible for our spirits to be born again. By the power of the Holy Spirit, God revives our spirits and restores us so that we can once again fellowship with Him and learn from Him and share with Him.

Because God creates us in His image, we have reason to give Him thanks and praise.

He makes us His new creation (2 Corinthians 5:17)

One of the funny things about people is that we want to be unique, but we also want to fit in. We want to celebrate our differences, but at the same time, most of us don’t want to stand out from the crowd. We want to blend in, not be odd. And, yet, there is still the desire to be unique, to be recognized for a special characteristic or trait or talent.

When God reaches down into or world, when He quickens our spirit, not only does He restore the life of our spirit, but He makes us into that which is new—we are a new creation. The word used for “creation” in 2 Corinthians is the same word used for the Greek translation of “creation” in Genesis 1. So when Paul writes that we are a new creation, he is saying that we have been created by God to be something completely different from anything ever seen in our world before. We are a new creation, a child of God, with the ability to be transformed by the renewing of our minds and our spirits. God makes us different in order that we might have a special relationship with Him.

And as He makes us a new creation, He is also making us like one another in that new creation. You and I have the ability to fellowship not only with God but with one another because we each have a new understanding and awareness of God and His will and His direction.

Can you imagine a world where we were alienated from God, where we had no fellowship or direction from Him? Can you picture a world where we had no genuine hope, no assurance of tomorrow? Paul pit it this way: “And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins. . . . If only for this life we have hope in Christ, we are to be pitied more than all men” (1 Corinthians 15:17, 19).

But we do have that hope, we do have security all because God made us a new creation, born again through the redeeming work of Jesus Christ, touched by and filled with His Spirit.

If we cannot be thankful for that, then there is something wrong with us. We thank God because He has made us a new creation.

Conclusion

Creativity is a wonderful thing. It’s fun to create something out of a whim or an idea or an inspiration. And every act of creativity is a reflection of the One Creator who is worthy of praise and thanksgiving. God is Creator, and for that we praise Him. God creates in us a new heart, and for that we give Him thanks.