Good Morning!
Schools have started and so our EmmDevs for the year start again. If I haven't seen you or had any other form of contact with you, please allow me to wish you a blessed and happy 2014.
Caleb starts High School this year and so I have had "New Beginnings" on my mind. We'll follow that thought for the next week or two...
----------------------------------------
The LORD God made garments of skin for Adam and his wife and clothed them. Genesis3:21
In talking about beginnings, one could argue that I've skipped the first beginning in Genesis 1, but I dealt with it in detail in August last year and for me that was a FIRST beginning. I'm using "new" beginnings in the sense that there was an "old" beginning that has been lost.
Creation was still very young when Adam and Eve wrecked it through their disobedience. In choosing what they desired and what their ambitions dictated, they alienated themselves from God.
Their disobedience wrecked four relationships:
With God: - They hid from Him
With themselves: - They were ashamed of their nakedness
With each other: - They blamed each other for their failure
With creation: - They were destined to struggle to till the earth
The picture is terribly sad: When God walks in the garden to be with them, they're hiding and trying to cover themselves with sewn together fig leaves. They've lost the first beginning.
But God gives them a new beginning: God makes garments of skin for them. By implication an animal dies. A sacrifice is made.
The sacrifice of the animal points toward Jesus' ultimate sacrifice. In Rev 7:9-14 we read about how we are clothed in robes that have been "washed in the blood of the Lamb."
This first "new" beginning already shows us something very important about new beginnings - they are not free, but Jesus is willing to pay.
===>
What a comfort to know that we are so loved by God that He gives us new beginnings even when it cost Jesus His life.
---
--------------------------
Theo Groeneveld theo@emmanuel.org.za
You can see past EmmDevs at http://emmdev.blogspot.com/
