Genesis 1:28. And God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth…”
Have you ever played with blocks or Legos? Of course you have. Maybe you poured out a tub of Legos on the table or ground and then spent hours (or minutes) building something from those Legos. They were just a pile of blocks until you gave them a design and a shape.
Or maybe you’ve played with a doll house or a toy castle, some kind of building. Likely you filled that house with all kinds of things – table, bed, chair, and maybe even dolls or action figures. You filled the empty house, castle, fort with
In Genesis 1:2 it says that “the Earth was without form and void.” That means that it had no shape and it had nothing in it. It was empty. So what does God do? He forms and he fills the Earth. God spends the first three days of creation forming, and the second three days of creation filling. He forms sky and water, land and sea. Then he fills his creation with the sun and moon, all kinds of plants, the fish of the sea, the birds of the air, and every category of animal you can imagine. Finally, he forms man from the dust of the ground, and fills him with the breath of life (we’ll get to this soon).
In verse 28 above, God is telling Adam and Eve to do what he did – form and fill. He’s telling them to image God by being creators, like God. He’s not just telling them, he’s blessing them. God is giving them permission to be like him. He’s saying to them, “When you create things like me, you will be happy.”
You see God didn’t literally create everything in Genesis 1. He didn’t create all the plants, all the fruits, all the vegetables. He created a garden’s worth and then told Adam and Eve to grow more and make the garden bigger. God didn’t create all the people at once; he created two people and then told them to become a loving family and make more people, children. God created everything from nothing. He didn’t start with a tub of Legos. He made the Legos out of nothing. Like God, we create things, but not from nothing. We use what God has graciously given to us to make more of what he’s given.
Creating is a huge part of what it means to be an image bearer of God, and ever since Adam and Eve people have been creating some pretty amazing things. Just in the first few chapters of Genesis we can see people creating farms and cities, tools and musical instruments, and even a giant boat to save creation in.
As Spider Man’s Uncle Ben said, “With great power comes great responsibility.” God gave us the power to create, and we have a responsibility to create things for the good of others. To share what we create with everyone, just like God did. Sadly, people quickly learned how to create things just so that they can hurt each other and rebel against God. People learned how to create bricks so that they could build a tower to Heaven without trusting God to get to Heaven. People learned how to create tools out of metal, but then they made weapons for hurting one another. People created kingdoms, but then those kings would abuse, enslave, and oppress the people in their realm.
Have you ever created something just to use it for yourself or even to use it to hurt someone else?
Praise God that when we trust in Jesus Christ, we have been re-formed and re-filled by the Holy Spirit as God’s New Creation. With Jesus, we can go back to being creators that build, make, form, and fill with the same love as God. We can build others up with our words and deeds of goodness and grace
Questions: Do you like being creative? In what ways are you a creator? How can you use your creative powers from God to love and build others up?
Pray together: Father, you created everything in love, including me. Help me to use your love to make every place I am full of your goodness and grace.
TLICfamily 