Tag Archives: beginning

The Beginning, September 7, 2020

Today’s Podcast

Subscribe in: iTunes|

Thanks for joining me today for “A Little Walk with God.” I’m your host Richard Agee.

God said to Moses and Aaron in the land of Egypt, “Mark this month as the first of all months for you – the first month of your year.” (Exodus 12:1‑2 The Voice)

When I read those words from the lectionary this week, it started me thinking. That’s always a little dangerous, but I began to think about those moments in my life in which the dates permanently fixed themselves in my mind. Things like my birthday. I don’t remember the first one, but I’m told I was there on June 22^nd more than a few years ago.

I remember my wedding day, December 4^th, 1976. This year my wife and I will celebrate forty-four years together in December. Not many can say that in a country with a divorce rate over 50%, and that among the Christian populace because many of those outside of religious institutions just live together instead of getting married.

I remember my kids’ birthdays. Even though the Army only let Carole and me enjoy nine of 30 anniversaries together during my career, I was there for both my daughter’s and son’s births. Those two days and the hours before that special time will stick in my memory forever.

I also remember the day we began the ground campaign in Desert Storm. The Air Force finished its bombardment of Iraqi fighting positions after almost a month of daily raids, and the Army crossed the border into Iraq on my wife’s birthday in 1991. I called her to wish her a happy birthday. She knew something was about to happen because my voice sounded different than at other times. A few hours later, the ground war began. That day pressed itself into my memory.

I also remember the day I finally told God I would obey his call on my life to pursue ministry for him. It was Sunday night, August 5, 1979. God and I had a long discussion all day about my future, and I finally figured out God knew a lot more than I did. I need to follow his direction in my life if I planned to succeed at anything. That’s the night I said yes to his call. It didn’t surprise my wife or very many people who knew me. I think it surprised me more than anyone else. The journey keeps getting more exciting and more interesting as time goes on. God gave me several occupations to put food on the table, the Army being the primary source for thirty years. But I’ve had the same vocation since that time, paid by his grace and the knowledge I’m doing as he asks.

Big days. Important milestones. I could name many more that stand out as monument moments that press themselves into life never to be forgotten. No doubt, you can do the same. Normally, life doesn’t flow past uninterrupted with no bumps or ripples. In the stream of life, we find a few calm peaceful places where we relax and enjoy the time we spend there. But we also find rapids and waterfalls and places where the water runs so much faster than we think it should.

Life is like that. Always different around the next bend in the river. Never really knowing what to expect. We can prepare for some of it. Sometimes it just hits full force and we hang on hoping the turbulence ends before it dashes us against the rocks.

God came to Moses and Aaron with the command to mark their deliverance as the first month of the year. He told them what would happen that night, but I’m not sure they really grasped the significance of his words. The Israelites obeyed, sacrificed a lamb, ate it in their family or with a neighbor, smeared its blood on the doorpost, and watched through the night. Most probably didn’t realize the vast reach God had across Pharaoh’s domain and the might he would display in that night. All the firstborn dead by morning. With only those spared housed behind the mark of the blood on the doorposts.

It sounds unbelievable. Almost silly. That God could distinguish between believers and non-believers by the act of putting blood on the door. And that the warrior angels he sent could even see the blood in the dark of the night and know which homes to spare and which to enter to kill the firstborn children and animals. But God created everything. From nothing, he spoke everything into place. How he did it is up for debate. Whether you believe he accomplished that task in six 24-hour days, or in six periods of time that correspond with eras to create light, elements for life, then life itself, doesn’t matter to me. What matters is acknowledging someone put it all together from nothing in that first moment of time. He is the great creator of all things.

If God can create a universe as remarkable and almost unbelievable as we can see through our most powerful telescopes, certainly he can send his envoys to distinguish which homes to pass over, and which to enter and do his bidding, in judgment against them. He is God. I have seen things man cannot explain. Will they one day? I don’t know. I’m not sure. God seems to defy the natural laws he created on occasion. Those are difficult to explain away. You can call them fairy tales unless they happen to you. You can call them coincidence until you see them firsthand. You can wish them away and think they never happen, but too many people witness them to say they don’t.

So, what should we do with those monumental moments? How should we handle those times and dates that stick in our mind that never go away? Some of those dates bring incredible joy. Some bring sorrow or terror or other extremely negative emotions. How do we address those times? For the Israelites, their deliverance became the first month of the beginning of all months. In essence, God said, this is the beginning of new life for you. This is the birth of a new nation, a new age. This is such a monumental, God only kind of deliverance that can only come from me, that you will need to start over from this point.

That’s how it is when he remakes us through his forgiveness. That’s how he can use those monumental moments in our lives. That’s how, as I look back on them, every one of those dates that stick in my mind, changed me in ways I would never imagine. God used each of them to mold me into the person I have become today. I would like to forget some of those days, but I also know they were important in shaping my character and helping me discover things about myself and my relationship with God and others than I could not have discovered otherwise.

Like Moses, Aaron, and the Israelites, remember those moments. Use the monumental things in your life to understand how God shapes you to be the person he wants you to become. Who knows, there may be a date that you mark as the beginning of new life for you. Not just making new resolutions or turning over a new leaf, but the month to begin all months. A new start. A fresh beginning. A new creation because of his work in your life. God does God-sized things when we let him. Try it out. He will amaze you at times. That’s just the way he works.

You can find me at richardagee.com. I also invite you to join us at San Antonio First Church of the Nazarene on West Avenue in San Antonio to hear more Bible-based teaching. You can find out more about my church at SAF.church. Thanks for listening. If you enjoyed it, tell a friend. If you didn’t, send me an email and let me know how better to reach out to those around you. Until next week, may God richly bless you as you venture into His story each day.

The Beginning of Life as We Know It, September 4, 2017

1 Reply

Today’s Podcast

Subscribe in: iTunes|Download

Thanks for joining me today for “A Little Walk with God.” I’m your host Richard Agee.

Bible Reading Plan – www.Bible-Reading.com

I’m back and happy to be sharing with you again after a brief interlude with work and family.

My church, San Antonio First Church of the Nazarene, begins a new series September 11 called The Story. Some of you may be familiar with The Story and may have even been through its 31 week study. In our church, through this series, every class and every sermon, and we hope every family and person will focus on The Story. So in keeping with the theme of my church, I will be sharing devotionals aligned with next Sunday’s sermon and small group discussions.

So today we start at the beginning of life as we know it found in Genesis chapters 1-8. I won’t get into discussions about whether we live on a young earth or an old earth. I won’t try to give you any scientific information on how all of this came into being. I won’t argue points about the size and scope of the universe or debate the physical properties and mathematical equations that explain the delicate balance of how life can exist at only this spot in our solar system. But I will tell you that every civilization, every religion tells the story of creation. And our Bible begins it this way: “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.”

At the end of those verses that outline the order of creation beginning with God’s spoken word to separate light from darkness, each creative act carries the same pronouncement. “God looked at His handiwork and said ‘It is good.” The earth He created, the living things that populate it, plants and animals and even man are all celebrated as good. God created them, so how could they be otherwise?

There is another important verse near the beginning of that creation narrative that helps us understand what the Bible, The Story, is really all about. It is found in Genesis 3:8, “Then the man and his wife heard the Lord God walking in the garden. It was the coolest time of the day.”

We will get to the rest of that verse in a moment, but it’s important to recognize what God is doing here. He desired to be with Adam and Eve. He also desires to be with us. It was God’s routine to meet with those first inhabitants of the earth and He walked with them in the garden each day.

You see, God’s greatest desire, His greatest passion, the thing He longs for is a relationship with the men and women He creates. You’ll find that the rest of The Story, from that first verse in Genesis until the closing verse in Revelation lays out for us God’s passion to have an intimate relationship with each of us.

God walked with Adam and Eve. They saw Him face to face. He communed with them as they cared for this creation He put into place. It was perfect when He designed it. In the beginning, there was no pain, no heartache, no tears, no death, no evil. The garden was the place God came to meet with the highest of His creation.

But in that third chapter of Genesis we find that Adam and Eve chose to disregard God’s instructions. They made the choice to disobey. And their act brought evil and death and the destruction to God’s good work. We brought pain and heartache and tears and death and evil into the world by our choosing. Ever since that first act of disobedience, we have lived out the last of Genesis 3:8, “The the man and his wife heard the Lord God walking in the garden. It wa the coolest time of the day. They hid from the Lord God among the trees of the garden.”

Adam and Eve could no longer face the perfect, holy God when their hearts were filled with disobedience and evil. So they hid. They covered their nakedness with fig leaves. They tried to get away from the One who desired to be with them. The rest of The Story, God’s Story, tells of His pursuit of us. We are still His creation and He still longs to walk with us.

God from this point on put a plan in place to redeem us. He wants us back. But He is still a holy God and will not tolerate evil. He made us this promise, though. One day He said He will recreate the earth. He will destroy this one and put in its place a new heaven and new earth. The new one will be better than this one because Satan will be banished. There will once again be no tears, no pain, no death, no evil. And we will once again see God face to face in that perfect recreated garden.

From the fall through the rest of The Story, God makes a way for those who follow Him. We see it in Adam and Eve’s children, Cain and Abel. God gave Cain a way of escape from the punishment of other men by putting His mark upon Him. God took Enoch to be with Him without experiencing the pain of death as an example of His love and grace. God rescued mankind from total destruction through Noah, a righteous man who followed God in all He did. Throughout His Story, we will see God and work trying to redeem us from the death we brought on ourselves.

But throughout The Story, we will also see that it is always our choice. We choose the path we take. We choose obedience or disobedience. We choose to remain trapped in the heartache and evil that come as a result of the fall. Or we choose to accept His plan of redemption and follow Him.

The first garden, the Garden of Eden was perfect. We destroyed it with our evil choices. Through the centuries to this very day, we continue to destroy God’s creation by our choosing to disobey. But for those who choose to listen to and believe His Story, those who trust in Him and follow His leading, there will be a new heaven and new earth. Better than the Garden of Eden. He promised it in His Story and God never breaks a promise.

There are five movements in The Story: the story of the garden, the story of Israel, the story of Jesus, the story of the Church, and the story of the new garden. We heard today an excerpt about the story of the garden. Join me again next week as we continue our journey through the five movements of the Bible, The Story, God’s plan to redeem us and have that intimate relationship He had with Adam and Eve walking through the Garden.

You can find me at richardagee.com. I also invite you to join us at San Antonio First Church of the Nazarene on West Avenue in San Antonio to hear more about The Story and our part in it. You can find out more about my church at SAF.church. Thanks for listening. If you enjoyed it, tell a friend. If you didn’t, send me an email and let me know how better to reach out to those around you. Until next week, may God richly bless you as you venture into His story each day.

The Voice Bible Copyright © 2012 Thomas Nelson, Inc. The Voice™ translation © 2012 Ecclesia Bible Society All rights reserved. In accordance with the requirements for FTC full disclosure, I may have affiliate relationships with some or all of the producers of the items mentioned in this post who may provide a small commission to me when purchased through this site.

El-Olam (Isaiah 40:28-31), June 10, 2017

Today’s Podcast

Subscribe in: iTunes|Download

Thanks for joining me today for “A Little Walk with God.” I’m your host Richard Agee.
El-Olam, the everlasting God. Can we even begin to comprehend what that means?
Scripture
1. Isaiah 40:28-31
2. Do you not know?

Have you not heard?

The Lord is the everlasting God,

the Creator of the ends of the earth.

He will not grow tired or weary,

and his understanding no one can fathom.

He gives strength to the weary

and increases the power of the weak.

Even youths grow tired and weary,

and young men stumble and fall;

but those who hope in the Lord

will renew their strength.

They will soar on wings like eagles;

they will run and not grow weary,

they will walk and not be faint.

Devotional
1. El-Olam, the everlasting God
2. Here is another one of those concepts we just can’t get our heads around
  1. Everlasting, eternal, always
  2. We base our concept of time on our lifespan because that’s the only reference we really have
  3. That’s what we know
  4. We try to imagine multiple generations and may have met our great- or great-great grandparents but even that timespan is difficult for us to comprehend
  5. When the Bible talks about the earliest of God’s creation living 900 plus years, many think it a myth and can not understand how it is possible, nor what even a couple of centuries of life would be like
  6. Everlasting? No comprehension
3. Even if we could imagine centuries or millennia and think back realistically to the age of the pyramids it doesn’t begin to compare with everlasting
  1. The history of man is insignificant in terms of everlasting
  2. The history of the planet is insignificant in terms of everlasting
  3. The history of everything is insignificant relative to everlasting
  4. Divide any amount of years by everlasting and the resulting fraction is so close to zero it might as well be zero. There is no comparison
4. As you begin to think about everlasting, remember our God is everlasting, He has no beginning and He has no end. He is more than everlasting, He is eternal.
5. Now as you let the concept of everlasting begin to overwhelm you, remember than the God we worship was and is and will be forever. A concept we really cannot understand but we can try. He is the God we worship. He is the God with infinite power and knowledge and wisdom and understanding because He has always been and always will be. He alone is eternal.
6. Worship El-Olam today.
If you want to learn more about my church, you can find us at SAF.church. If you like the devotional, share it with someone. If you don’t, tell me. I hope you’ll join me again tomorrow for “A Little Walk with God.”