Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. And God blessed them. And God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.” And God said, “Behold, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is on the face of all the earth, and every tree with seed in its fruit. You shall have them for food. And to every beast of the earth and to every bird of the heavens and to everything that creeps on the earth, everything that has the breath of life, I have given every green plant for food.” And it was so. And God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day. (Genesis 1:26-31 ESV).
First, let me apologize for being late with today’s devotional. I simply didn’t get it done. However, in thinking about where we would go this month leading to Christmas, I felt it might be encouraging to meander through some of the lesser-used topics relating to Christmas. The “condition of our world” is one of those. Our reading today is the end of the story of God’s creation. I love the way the Holy Spirit communicated with Moses that after God finished creating he surveyed His work and simply declared it to be “very good.” We tend to scoff at that given the condition of our world today. At the very least we can say it is a far cry from what God saw on that sixth day of creation. It is simply not “good.”
About 5% of the world’s population is ultra rich with annual economic growth greater that the rest 99.5% of the world. Religious extremism is killing more people on earth in Syria, Afghanistan, Niger, Nigerian and other countries prone to extremism than combined factors of earthquakes, tornadoes, tsunamis, and any pandemic the world has known. Humans have developed the most highly advanced science in regard to disease and yet we cannot make a dent in world hunger. The hopelessness among the poor and impoverished people of the World is at its highest in recorded history with nearly six million dying from a lack of food every year. Personal relationships, especially in the family unit, are collapsing. Violence is at an all-time high. This cannot be the definition of “good.”
As we will see in the coming days, there is an answer. It is in the birth of a Savior nearly 2,000 years ago. He is THE answer to all our needs, now and in the future. That is the real celebration of Christmas. My prayer is that these musings will serve as an encouragement to you this season!