Creator Credit

Like Nebuchadnezzar strutting on the walls of Babylon (Dan.4), or Herod taking his bows in his royal robes (Ac.12), or the nine lepers thoughtlessly strolling on their merry way (Lk.17), when moderns carelessly deny God the credit for their origins or their daily blessings they cannot think that they will be exempt from the same divine response. Certainly God, above all others, deserves credit for his works. The Bible does not remember Nebuchadnezzar, Herod and the nine lepers as self-made role models, but as warnings. They are reminders that when the Creator decides to bless our lives and our world with beauty, pleasure or prosperity we, as his creatures, should always take the time to humbly praise him for being the gracious Giver. The Psalmist tells us to “Give thanks to the Lord, call on his name; make known among the nations what he has done. Sing to him, sing praise to him; tell of all his wonderful acts” (Ps.105:1-2). Let’s embrace that directive, open our eyes to God’s works and boldly give him the credit for the great things he has done.

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Dependence

Comprehending something of our real and absolute dependence on God is foundational to everything in the Christian life. It is where Paul began with the Athenians when, after proclaiming that God was their Creator, he asserted that “he himself gives to all mankind life and breath and everything” (Acts 17:25). That is a kind of moment-by-moment, breath-by-breath involvement of God that seems to be easily forgotten by most Christians these days. And yet, this is certainly not because the Bible doesn’t persistently declare God’s involvement. We see it from the beginning, when it is said that humanity commenced with God’s personal issuance of “the breath of life” (Genesis 2:7). It is sung in the Psalter of Israel that God himself “is the fountain of life” (Psalm 36:9). Job said that if God “should set his heart to it and gather to himself his spirit and his breath, all flesh would perish together and man would return to the dust” (Job 34:14-15). Paul told the Colossians that it is Christ who “is before all things, and in him all things hold together” (Colossians 1:17). So when we are tempted to think that the triune God is distant or disconnected from our lives, we need to remember that nothing could be further from the truth. He not only created us, he actively sustains us. Were he to ignore us, even for a moment, we would cease to exist. So then, especially as Christians, we must live with a perpetual awareness that God “is not far from each one of us, for ‘In him we live and move and have our being’” (Acts 17:27-28).

For more sermons and devotionals on God's Truth, please go to the Focal Point Ministries website at www.focalpointministries.org