Before there was time, before there was light.
Before the earth began to turn.
Before there were stars, or galaxies or the universe…
There was God.
And God was thinking about you.

He saw you. He knew you. He dreamed about your life. Of knowing you, of loving you. Of adopting you into His family.

God wasn’t lonely. God wasn’t needy. God didn’t feel that part of Him was missing. But still He loved you. Out of His fullness, His love, His completeness, He desired to have you as part of His life. And to share all that He had with you.

So God created the beginning, and set the earth in time and space. The earth was dark and empty, so God said, ‘Let there be light’, and there was.

Creation

God said, ‘Let there be an expanse in the midst of the waters. Let the waters under the heavens be gathered together into one place, and let dry land appear. Let the earth sprout vegetation; plants producing seeds, and fruit trees. Let there be lights set in the heavens to separate the day from the night. For signs and for seasons, and for days and years. Let the waters swarm with living creatures, and let birds fly across the heavens. Let the earth bring forth living creatures; livestock, creeping things and beasts, according to their kinds.’

And all the time God was thinking about you.

Man

Then God said, ‘Let Us make man in Our image, after Our likeness.

So God created man in His own image. Male and female He created them and God blessed them. And God looked at everything that He had made, and He saw it was very good.

God loved the man He had created. He loved the woman He had created. And they loved Him. In the cool of the afternoon they would walk together in the garden He had planted for them. God showed the man, all the animals He had created. The man gave names to the animals and God liked the names the man chose.

God showed the man all the trees and plants He had made. God loved the man, and had provided for everything he needed. He said, “You may confidently eat from every tree in the garden.”

But then He warned the man, “But, of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you must not eat. If you eat from it, the day you do, dying you will die.’

The man and the woman loved God, they enjoyed living in the garden He had planted for them, but there was something about that forbidden tree.

Sin

Their enemy, the serpent, took that thought and worked on it.

He spoke to the woman. What was God trying to hide from them? What was the big thing God was trying to keep for Himself and stop them enjoying?

Faced with temptation, the man and his wife gave in. They ate from the tree. In that moment, sin entered the world and along with sin, death.

Their sin was doing something that God had said they must not. Their death was being separated from God, as their bodies wound down and wasted away.

God still loved the man and the woman, but He hated that their sin had become a barrier to His relationship with them.

God had given them everything, even life itself. But they had not trusted Him. They had become suspicious of Him and acted against His will, outside of His desires.

 Over the years that followed, God showed the man and his children His plan for their lives. Again and again, they and their children went against what He wanted. What began as suspicion of God, developed to a point where every intention of the thoughts of men’s heart’s were only continually evil.

The Flood

God regretted that he had made man and it made His heart sore.

He said,

‘I will blot out man, whom I created, from the face of the land. Man and animals and creeping things and birds of the heavens. For I am sorry that I have made them.’

But one man, Noah, found favour in the eyes of God.

God showed the world how He felt about sin. He sent a flood that destroyed every living thing.

But God also showed how He felt about man. In His love and compassion, He saved Noah and His family.

God still loved man. In the flood, God saved one man and his family. In Jesus, God would make a way for every man and every woman to be saved. Even if it cost Him the most precious thing He had. In Jesus, God would make a way for every man to be saved. Not from the surging waters, but from the flood of sin that separated us all from Him.

Jesus

And so God so loved the world.

So loved the wretched, rebellious, religious, revolting people we had become that He sent His only begotten Son.

The One Child that belonged to Him, without adoption.

The One Child born of His perfection; the glory of heaven distilled into man.

The Child grew and became strong; He was filled with wisdom and the grace of God was on Him. The very Word of God had become flesh and dwelt among us, and we all saw His glory, full of grace and truth.

God’s anointing was upon Him, with the Holy Spirit and with power. He went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil. For God was with Him.

But God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world. To simply set them a standard they could never achieve. Or judge them for the ways that they failed God.

God did not send His Son as a guru to show us how to live, or as a moral compass to teach us how to love.

God sent His Son as a sacrifice.

The first man’s sin had resulted in death.

Death was the penalty for sin.

Jesus was sent to pay that penalty.

By dying and overcoming death He could free us all from the penalty of sin.

And so, betrayed by the kiss of a friend, Jesus, the man who was God, was handed over to sinful men. Falsely tried and convicted, He died a criminal’s death on a rough wooden cross. But after being dead and buried three days in a borrowed tomb, Jesus folded His grave clothes neatly, as if to say, ‘Thank you for having me,’ and stepped out into eternal life, as the first of God’s children to be born again from the dead.

God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him, should not suffer the penalty of their sin, the death of their body and separation from God. God so loved the World, that whoever believes in His Son, would not perish, but would have eternal life.

This is eternal life, to know God and to know Jesus, the Son whom God sent.

The Bible tells us that whoever calls on the name of Jesus will be saved.

Though we have not seen Him, we can still call on Him. We can still love Him. And even though you do not see Him now, you can still believe in Him and be filled with an inexpressible and glorious joy! Because if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, then you will be saved. Saved from the penalty of your sin, the death of your body and that separation from God.

Before there was time, before there was light.
Before the earth began to turn.
Before there were stars, or galaxies or the universe…
There was God.
And God was thinking about you.

Today, God is still thinking about you.

Today, He invites you. Believe in His Son. Confess Him as Lord.

Today, come to know God the Father, through His Son.