Welcome!!--Gen 1-3

My dear friend, Christy Watson, has created a facebook group for going through the Bible in a year together.  If you'd like to be included in the group, let me know and I'll send you an invitation.  I'm going to try my best to stay a day ahead so I can have a blog post for the day ready for you early in the morning each day. 

So much is in Genesis 1-3:  creation, commissioning, sin, and curses.  The core reason for prayer is contained in this passage and I want you to see it clearly.  Genesis 1:27-28 tells us:

^"27 So God created human beings in his own image.  In the image of God he created them; male and female he created them. ²⁸ Then God blessed them and said, “Be fruitful and multiply. Fill the earth and govern it. Reign over the fish in the sea, the birds in the sky, and all the animals that scurry along the ground.”

This is our commission from the Father.  We were created in His image for the purpose of executing His rulership over His creation.  The word used for image has the connotation of a "magic trick."  It conveys the sense that all of creation would need a double-take to tell the difference so that we could carry out the rulership job He gave us. 

When mankind fell, (in Genesis 3) it is striking that our commission wasn't recinded.  The curses indicated there would be a growing distrust between the sexes and difficulty in fulfilling our commission, but we were still God's primary representative on the earth.  Romans 11:29 tells us: "²⁹ For God’s gifts and his call can never be withdrawn."

Because that authority was granted to us to rule over the earth, God chose from that point forward not to do anything without our request.  A review of the scripture confirms this.  God will not and has not directly intervened in human history without our request.  Bill Bright did the homework and he only found two direct acts of God that did not come at our request: creation and redemption, which were both planned long before we existed. 

Indeed, it could be argued that one of the reasons for the incarnation was that God needed to become a man to fully reign without going back on the call He issued to us.  It gives entirely new meaning to Jesus' words when He told us that all authority on heaven and earth had been given to him--the only man to perfectly represent God's will here on earth, even to death. 

We need God to intervene on our behalf.  Jesus lives to intercede for us and the Holy Spirit teaches us what to ask, but we still have to ask--it is the way God has chosen to act in our world. 

As you reign alongside the ultimate King of Kings, what are you asking God to do for you this year?