The Kingdom, The Kids, & The Cowboys

AllanStanglin.com

Category: Creation (Page 3 of 4)

All of Creation is Good

August 25, 2015 / / 0 Comments

CreationBeginning2“God saw all that he had made, and it was very good.” ~Genesis 1:31

We look around today and a lot of us say, “The world now is worse than it’s ever been.” And I want to say, “What’s your frame of reference? What’s your standard? Ever heard of the Middle Ages? Today is not that bad.”

It is true that we rebel against our Creator and we misuse God’s Creation and we make ourselves and others around us miserable because of our rebellion. But there is nothing in the Story and nothing in our theology that says God’s Creation has become a bad Creation. The evil that invades God’s Creation is not stronger than the Creator. It can never change the essential goodness of what God created. Despite everything that spoils and corrupts it, we live in a very good world and it is very good to be alive today in it.

We affirm the goodness of the world, not because we’re optimistic about people or because we’re ignoring all the injustice and suffering. We are well aware that because of human wisdom we endure wave after wave of hopelessness and despair. What humans consider progress has resulted in the brutality of modern wars, the suffering and oppression of minorities, the ever-widening gap between the few rich and comfortable and the many poor and helpless. But we don’t give up on it. We don’t withdraw from it. We’re not trying to leave it. We affirm the world because God created it and he says “Yes” to it.

“The earth is the Lord’s, and everything in it, the world, and all who live in it.” ~Psalm 24:1

The Creation belongs to God. It’s his. He made it and he owns it. All of it. It’s his property. That’s why when evil comes in and seems to take over, God doesn’t abandon the world and turn away from it. He comes here in flesh and blood to suffer with it and for it. It’s good, it’s all good; and he’s committed to it. In the death and resurrection of Jesus, God reclaims what’s always belonged to him and asserts forever his powerful and loving lordship over the world, for the sake of the world.

To try to escape this world or our worldly responsibilities would be to try to escape from God. Focusing on some kind of future in the sky and not paying attention to our present and future world is not living in step with the Story. God promises not only a new heaven, but a new earth.

All of Creation is good. Right now. Today and forever.

We look around and say, “I don’t know…” and we wring our hands. God looks around and says, “I do know!” And we align our minds and our wills to his.

Peace,

Allan

God is The Creator

August 24, 2015 / / 0 Comments

School2015And then there was one. For the first time in thirteen years, when we took first day of school pictures this morning, there was only one child standing in the frame holding her school supplies. Carley starts her sophomore year today at Canyon High School. Val began classes today at WT and Whitney is at United. So, yeah, this is different. Carley lamented last night that when I sing our traditional first-day-of-school song (that all the girls publicly protest, but secretly admire) she’ll be the only one I’m singing to. That’s right. Of course, I sang it loud enough so that maybe Valerie could have heard it. But how would I know: she’s not returning phone calls or texts.CarleySchool2015

Carrie-Anne is beginning her third year as the Culinary Arts Director at Canyon High. We had to stick C-A in one of the photos because Carley was feeling lonely.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

CreationBeginning“In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.” ~Genesis 1:1

We mostly blow right past this opening sentence, when this opening sentence ought to blow us away. You can’t create a pencil. I can’t create a ping pong ball. We can’t create anything. And God created the heavens and the earth.

You can theorize about a big bang and discuss primordial matter all afternoon. But what we clearly have in Act One, Scene One is God speaking into nothing and creating everything. In the beginning, there is an explosion of life and God is the sole initiator. This story counters all the other stories that were out there at the time: that creation was a mistake, that it was the result of strife between rival gods, that human beings were an accident. All the creation stories before the one in Genesis were about conflict and hate and violence and war and mistakes. Our story says creation is the intentional action of a loving God.

“The Lord is the true God;
he is the living God, the eternal King.
These gods who did make the heavens and the earth will perish from the earth and from under the heavens.
God made the earth by his power;
he founded the world by his wisdom
and stretched out the heavens by his understanding.” ~Jeremiah 10:10-12

Act One tells us there was a beginning and in the beginning there was God. A person. With an identity and character and a consciousness. A God with a personality and traits and emotions. We are a theistic people. But we are not a generally theistic people, we are a specifically theistic people: we believe in the God of the Bible. He is all powerful and he is all responsible.

Sometimes we shake our fists at God. When he’s not doing what he think is loving or just or wise, we yell at God. “Why are you doing that? Why are you not doing this?” The reason we believe he is all responsible is because we believe there is no other God.

In Acts 4, the early church is praying for God to do something great. The Christians are being persecuted and arrested and thrown in prison. And the church prays. “God start healing people. God start doing miracles. God handle the problem of the government. God perform some mighty wonders.” They’re expecting great things. Why?

“Sovereign Lord, you made the heaven and the earth and the sea, and everything in them.” ~Acts 4:24

God is the The Creator. It’s basic. It’s foundational. It’s so important. All of salvation is predicated on Creation. Once we get a handle on it, the whole rest of the Story of God makes perfect sense. The ugliness of sin, the redemption and New Creation of all bodies — it truly adds up when Creation is the first Act.

Peace,

Allan

Act One-Creation

August 23, 2015 / / 0 Comments

World1-ArtCreation is the very first story in our children’s Bible books. It’s punctuated by beautifully bright and colorful pictures. Our kids read about the sun, moon, and stars; the pretty flowers and tall trees; all the animals; the first man and woman, cleverly covered by strategically placed jungle cats and foliage. Our children memorize the days of Creation. It’s so wonderful for them.

Creation is the hotly debated topic in state courts and text books. Scientists and theologians use complicated rhetoric and really big words to assert their positions and refute the opposition’s claims. Creation is controversial. It’s nearly impossible to explain. Evolutionists and “young earth” proponents can’t reconcile their Creation beliefs. They argue Creation. It’s so difficult for them.

The Church, meanwhile, has just about relegated God’s Creation to children’s books and academic journals. It seems that Creation is talked about everywhere but in the Church. We leave it alone as either too elementary or too contentious.

No! Creation is everything!

Act One of the Story of God sets the main stage. It introduces the main actor and tells us the purpose of the Story. This is the foundation. Creation tells us everything we need to know about our relationship with God and the reason for his salvation mission. If we miss Creation, if we get it wrong, if we skip it, we’re going to mess up everything else in the Story. Act One is the divine pattern for everything else that follows. Everything in the Story of God is predicated on and points back to Creation.

Today at Central we open up the Story of God together with the everlasting truth of that enormous first sentence: “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.”

Peace,

Allan

Knowledge of the Lord

March 16, 2015 / / 0 Comments

“…asking God to fill you with the knowledge of his will through all spiritual wisdom and understanding.” ~Colossians 1:9

The Holy Scriptures are certainly a primary way we receive the gift of the knowledge of the Lord. We are shown through the Bible exactly what our God has done and is doing through our Lord Jesus Christ. It’s a beautiful story, a compelling drama that draws us into the action. It involves us, it inspires us, it moves us to join in. But some of us still view the Bible as something else. We see the Scriptures as a book of rules and laws that must be kept before an all-seeing and all-judging God. No, the Bible is something different. The Bible is the grand sweeping story of God and his faithful presence and activity with his people and his people’s faithful and sometimes not so faithful response. God created something beautiful and he is right now re-creating something beautiful. He’s restoring everything back to its original pre-sin condition. His will — what God is doing — this knowledge of the Lord, includes redemption for all of creation, including us.

What God is doing is a story. It’s a narrative. And this is how we’re going to explore it and experience it together at Central:

ACT 1
Genesis 1-2      Creation – Pattern of the Kingdom

ACT 2
 Genesis 3-11      The Fall – Perished Kingdom

ACT 3
Gen. 12 – Malachi 4      Covenant – Promised Kingdom

ACT 4
Matt. 1 – John 21      Jesus – Present Kingdom

ACT 5
Acts – Rev. 20      Church – Proclaimed Kingdom

ACT 6
Revelation 21-22      New Creation – Perfected Kingdom

This more narrative view of Scripture helps us make more sense of things and brings more order to our own lives and experiences. We live today in the 5th ACT of the drama. So, more than restoring New Testament Christianity or going backwards to the times of Jesus or the days of the apostles, we’re called to move forward in the drama. We’re called to live it out, to play our roles and say our lines in ways that move the story forward toward its glorious conclusion.

Sometimes our biggest problems come when we place our lives and experiences in the wrong acts of the play. Leukemia belongs in ACT 2 of the play, not ACT 1. God did not create cancer; cancer is a result of living in a fallen world, broken by sin. Don’t let anybody tell you God gave you leukemia. The affair you’re having with that other man is not something God wants for you because your husband is a punk and God wants you to be happy. The adultery belongs in ACT 2 with sin, not in ACT 1 with the perfect things God created for us. Muslims are living today as if ACT 4 never happened; they’re still fighting the battles of ACT 3. A guy who is sleeping with his girlfriend before they are married because he’s a red-blooded American male and doesn’t really have a choice because nobody waits for marriage anymore needs to be reminded that we are living in ACT 5 of God’s story where our lives are a proclamation of the truth of Christ Jesus and his eternal Kingdom. Our lives are a testimony to the great change that was inaugurated when Jesus rose from the grave.

We need to know where we are. And we need to know what’s coming. We need to know that God is the author of the story and he has the last say. He writes the final word. And we need to see ourselves in the story and join it, live it, with everything we’ve got.

Isaiah says when the Kingdom is finally perfected, when God’s holy will has all been finally fulfilled, there will be righteousness and justice and peace because “the whole earth will be full of the knowledge of the Lord.”

Knowledge changes the whole world. And it changes us.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

After 22 years of serving the Central family as a member of the church staff, Connie Green is retiring at the end of this month. Connie started out here as a teacher with Kid University in 1993, moved on to work with our singles and membership ministries, and for the past fifteen years has served as a valuable administrative assistant and faithful ministry partner to the preacher. Since we moved here three-and-a-half years ago, Connie has kept me out of trouble and one step ahead. She makes me look good. And that’s a tough assignment: I can be impulsive and last-second.

Connie, we all feel great appreciation and admiration for your selfless service to Central. I’m so glad that you and Jay are remaining here in Amarillo and at Central. We all wish you the very best of God’s richest blessings in this next phase of your lives together.

Peace,

Allan

Surely God is My Help

July 22, 2013 / / 0 Comments

“Save me, O God, by your name;
vindicate me by your might.
Hear my prayer, O God;
listen to the words of my mouth.
Strangers are attacking me;
ruthless men seek my life —
men without regard for God.
Surely God is my help;
the Lord is the one who sustains me.”
~Psalm 54:1-4

The psalmist recognizes that the world is full of wicked men and women, people who have no regard for God. This world is full of evil. It has its dark places. There are people who do not recognize the eternal authority of our God. They do not see God, they do not keep their eyes on God, they do not follow him. They are seeking their own paths, their own ways. And so we are surrounded by violence and war, we’re confronted daily with poverty and disease, we’re bombarded by accusations and lies, we’re troubled by broken relationships and wrecked communities.

God, though, is the psalmist’s “help.” The Hebrew word used here to describe God is the same word used in Genesis of the woman God made for Adam. Help. Helper. Helpmeet, my dad still says in his funny KJV. The picture is of a strong partner, one who delivers, one who completes and makes whole that which is lacking.

This song suggests that our God is still willing and very, very capable of providing what is needed to fix what’s wrong in this world. Our God is a God of justice and equity. He takes no pleasure in evil. He truly cares for his entire creation. And he longs — his Holy Spirit groans — for that day when all is made right. As followers of the Christ who do hold our God in high regard, we are compelled to keep our eyes on him. We’re moved to seek his ways, not ours. As Gerald Wilson writes,

“We can no longer make light of his power and glory, nor can we ignore the call to participate in the restoration of the world. Our relationships will and must change; we will and must seek justice and equity as God does; we will and must respond to the whole creation in ways that seek its best interests rather than ours.”

God is my help. He makes whole that which is now in part. He makes me whole — total peace. He’s cleansing and restoring his people. He’s making all things perfect and new. Just like he did in the garden.

“I will praise your name, O Lord,
for it is good.”
~Psalm 54:6

Peace,

Allan

The New Has Come!

May 28, 2013 / / 0 Comments

“If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!” ~2 Corinthians 5:17

We hear the word “new” about thirty-one thousand times a day. All in TV commercials, I think. New this, new that, new everything. Everything’s new. New and improved. New and longer lasting. New and April fresh. No, most of those things aren’t really new. That detergent’s not really new: they just added some blue sprinkles inside the box and a fourth color on the outside of the box. That cereal’s not new; they just replaced the yellow stars with purple ponies. Come on, we’re wise to this scam. The word “new” just means less content, more complicated packaging, at a higher price.

That’s why Paul says “new creation.” Paul says participating in the death and resurrection of Jesus dramatically changes everything. The same God who created the heavens and the earth out of emptiness and darkness takes your emptiness and darkness, he takes your confusion and chaos, and creates a brand new person. You are truly a brand new person, full of God’s Holy Spirit, made to experience all of life in a brand new way. All of this is from God, Paul says.

The same power that was on display when God first said, “Let there be light” is at work in you. The same glory that characterized the forming of the mountains and the seas, the same glory of the making of the sun and the moon and the stars, the same glory that was present in the creation of that very first human being from the dust of the ground in the holy image of Almighty God, that same original and eternal power and glory now characterizes you! And everything around you!

The old has gone; the new has come! He has changed us! He has changed everything! What God has done and is doing in your life is just as magnificent and miraculous as the creation of the world!

I’m glad Paul said, “new creation,” and not just “new.”

“New creation” changes everything.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

My good friend Matt Richardson’s grandmother died Sunday in Abilene. He and I were exchanging some texts today about her and about the funeral later this week. He described her to me — “a Godly woman with plenty of spunk.” And then he wrote, “You’ll like her when you meet her.”

“You’ll like her when you meet her.”

Yeah, I love that. I am going to meet Matt’s grandmother some day soon. I will get to know her. And I will like her.

I thanked Matt for writing that, for reminding me that his grandmother lives forever and that we will eat and drink together with our risen King around his banquet table in his eternal Kingdom. For reminding me that my grandmother lives, too. For reminding me that he who believes in Jesus will live, even though he dies, and whoever lives and believes in Jesus will never die.

When I thanked Matt for writing, “You’ll like her when you meet her,” he texted right back:

“I didn’t mean today…”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Carley and the show choir at Bonham Middle School rocked the ’80s last night. If the music from my high school days is considered by today’s kids to be old and nostalgic, what does that make me?

Peace,

Allan

« Older posts Newer posts »

© 2026 The Kingdom, The Kids, & The Cowboys

Theme by Anders Noren — Up ↑