In The Begining

In the Beginning
by Maclean Mbepula

I intend on quickly sharing with you what God was revealing to me this morning.... something beautiful… something edifying….. It could change the way that you look at God, yourself and life itself. The interesting thing is, God is really no respecter of persons, he was revealing to me something when I was in the middle of a hectic deadline…. I had to get some work finished and he was just revealing things to me that I knew nothing about in my heart… though some of it I knew in my head but now it resonated in my soul and spirit. I am blessed and I would like you to be too. Anyway, I handed in what I had to hand in, and my meeting with this particular client went quite well.

I was trying to learn to accept that "I am valuable to God; that there is intrinsic value in me that makes “me” worth it. That I should esteem myself as highly (without pride) as God esteems me... because he loved me enough to let his only begotten son, Jesus Christ die... his beloved, to die on the cross for me. " Therefore, I first had to look at God. When a product has a problem, you take it to the producer. Say the product is a Cadbury chocolate bar, you tell Cadbury that their chocolate had/has a prob. When a manufactured good has a problem you take it to the manufacturer. And the Bible says that God created mankind; including me, meaning that He is my manufacturer. Therefore, if I want to understand my value then I first have to look at my manufacturer, God.

I thought a good place to start would be one of the most famous verses. Seeing as the Bible says, (John 3:16), “For God so loved the world that He gave his only begotten son, (Jesus Christ) that whomsoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.” (parenthesis mine)

When I woke up this morning, I was meditating on this particular verse. It says that God loved me so much that he sent Jesus to die for me. It finally hit me after a little while, that if God loves me enough to send his son Jesus Christ to die for me, how much more is he able to give me freely that which I ask from him? I mean, he gave me Jesus Christ, before I knew that I needed him. He planned salvation out before I was ever conceived. If he were ready to give me his supreme gift, how much more would he be willing to give me? This helped me to understand that God truly is generous and that he truly does have my best interests at heart, but my best interests are inherently in his perfect plan. It may not always seem like it is but if I have accepted Jesus as my Lord and saviour, the Bible says that everything ends up working to my good because I love Him and I am called according to His purpose. And I underline the word EVERYTHING. That includes the time before I was saved. It includes that relationship, that bad choice and that unforgettable moment. It includes everything, but this is only if we have accepted Jesus for what the Bible says He is. If I have, it can all work out to my good.

When we do not know God, we have an insatiable hunger, burning in us, as we hunt for something or even someone to try and fill it. Others try alcohol, others try sex… others try drugs, fame and fortune…. Others try adrenaline rushes and quite a lot of others try food (and the deceptive comfort that they believe they can get from it). But then comes a moment when the Holy Spirit whispers, “try GOD”. Usually, this happens when your back is against the wall and you really don’t have that many options. If you choose this option, as billions have discovered, your life is never the same again. If you accepted the free gift of salvation, then you know exactly what I’m talking about.

So, when I analysed John 3:16. I realised God’s goodness. I mean His awesome goodness. Think about it one moment: giving His all for you… when you didn’t even know you needed it. We really shouldn’t forget that God didn’t “have” to create us. And God didn’t really “have” to send Christ to save us…. By this I mean, YES , WE needed Jesus to come; there was no other way to obtain reunion with God and eternal forgiveness, but Jesus had an option: He really didn’t have to come. God could have said, these people have caused you much pain, why not just wipe everything away and create a whole new creation which will actually not be such a problem (remember the story of Noah in Genesis 6 where God was willing to wipe out the human race had it not been that Noah was found to be righteous). But yet God chose to work with us because He knew that WE NEEDED him. If there was anything that God could have given to save us, He would have done but there is nothing greater and no one greater than Jesus, so He sent His best: His best for us. He chose to help us where we were before we had any idea. The bottom line is, God wanted you in this world. God wanted you in his world. I Repeat; GOD WANTED YOU IN HIS WORLD!! How awesome is that? I mean, God makes no mistakes. The Bible says that He is a God of infinite wisdom, His creating you was no mistake. In fact, God makes no mistakes, everything that God does is wonderful (Ps 139 v 14). The Bible actually says that God knitted you in your mothers womb…. Other translations state that he “crafted ” you (refer to Psalms 139) in your mothers womb, meaning that not only did He make you, but it involved more than His abilities, it involved His heart and mind…. And with carrying God’s image we carry “a part of God” in us. Which other creation of God is created in His image? Which other created species, apart from us, has been told that it can be sons and daughters of God if it so chooses? God didn’t need us to come. He didn’t need me to come but He chose you to come, He chose me to come. He wanted to express His love to and through me and you.

Then the question arose in my head about my self worth again; Am I good? Now, again, it had to go back to my manufacturer and seeing as my manufacturer left me a manual (The Bible), I turned to it again, to find out. Is God really good? (Yeah, yeah, I’ve been saved for a long time but sometimes things spring up and … you have dodgy questions… which you really can only quench with the word of God). If God is good then I should be good as well. So many of us have at some point asked, before we came to know the love of God, that if there was a good God then why was there evil? When I’ve tried to tell them about Jesus and God’s great love for them,…. people have asked me, “If God is good, why did my aunt die of cancer….. Why was my cousin raped? Why this? Why that?” Indeed bad things happen but even so, the greater question ought to be, Why do good things happen? So many times our thinking is unbalanced….. and it warps our understanding… and a warped understanding is the devils playground.

I will not talk about why there is good and evil in this letter but rather, why God is good and why therefore I am valuable because God made me in His deliberate goodness. I want you to see something wonderful about yourself in this.

Please understand that if you think that God isn’t good, you’ll have a prob believing that you are good.

Ok, lets take a glance at Genesis 1 and 2. Let’s take a look at God’s initial intentions for you.

Firstly, God went and created a wonderful perfect place and lastly decided to create man. The place was actually paradise. I mean what more would you want. A gorgeous garden, great tasting food, security, accommodation, purpose… The Bible says that when God created Adam, he went and made a garden called Eden for Adam, this garden was going to be where Adam lived and worked. The Bible says that God told Adam that he would be in charge…. I mean the sole guardian and manager. God intended a perfect place for all creation, including you. There would have been no pain, no heartache, no ugliness in body, soul or spirit, nothing to hide, no worries. There would have been perfect communion and fellowship with God. And God gave Adam an important commission, to protect the Tree of Life which was in the centre of his garden. God, knowing full well what Adam needed and desired, decided (before Adam even asked or knew), to make him a “woman”, a wonderful beautiful helper to be by his side and compliment his efforts; again, God showcasing His infinite goodness just because it’s in His nature. She also was created in his image. Again, what would you say: isn’t this the picture of perfect living? I mean, can life get any better than this? Think of that one person that you felt you loved so much… that Adonis, that “belle”, and then, think having him/her with you in a gorgeous place, given to you by God, with God’s blessing for your good pleasure, forever? How can this get any better?

This work that God began then, is a clear representation of what God is ever-willing to do for us: God provided everything that Adam needed; food, accommodation, security, friendship, purpose commission, a bright future, trust, self esteem, health, wealth, power, His image, blessings, potential, Adam pleased God (Gen 1: 31)

The mind of God is good because all He has planned for us is good. It’s displayed in all that He has designed and done since the beginning of time. God’s intentions are good. And my opinion is that God is some sort of a “Hopeless Romantic” : I mean you only have to look at how he came, like some sort of a fantasy love story: the tall dark and handsome knight in shinny armour coming to the damsel in distress. But I have to say that God isn’t infatuated with us, He is in love with us. He’s love isn’t that Mills and Boons type of love but the “I‘ll live with you, for you, care, protect and provide for you… and I’ll give up my life for you.”

When we look at Jesus on the cross, blood stained, bleeding, hurting beyond imagination, forsaken and completely abased…. For us; for you, and for me, we see one magnificent glimpse of God’s undying and insurmountable love for you… and me. The Bible actually says that God is love and by Him creating you and me, he wanted a means to express His nature, Himself: His love.

As far as I can see, God’s intentions for you and me are good. One may ask, how can I be sure that they remain good towards me?

Again, we can go back to the manufacturer and have a look in His manual… each “manufactured good” has an expiry date, it has an end…. Things depreciate in value. Firstly, we can look at the Bible: do we depreciate in value?

Before we go any further, we should make a decision today on whether or not it’s the truth. We should choose for ourselves. We have a choice and sooner than later we should make a choice. We have to make a choice. We can’t stay perched on the picket fence forever. There comes a time when we have to choose one from the other. And if you ask me, it really ought to be sooner rather than later. We really never quite have as much time as we think. What we must remember is that there cannot be plural truths in certain things. If someone says that an object is only one colour, you can’t go and say that it is both black and white: it’s one or the other. And that’s the fact: the Bible is either true or not. You can believe or not believe. Make a choice, if you haven’t yet. As for me, I have: I have found that it is the truth…the whole truth and nothing but the truth… How do I know this for myself: because it had the power to change me completely. The person I am now isn’t the person that I was before I came to know Jesus Christ as my Lord and saviour. Like Joyce Meyer likes to say, I am not where I ought to be but thank God that I am not where I was.


The Bible says that God is the same yesterday, today and tomorrow. He said that: He so loved the world that He sent His only son (the final frontier) so that if you believe in Him then you will not perish but have ever-lasting life (be with Him forever… ain’t gonna have unsatisfaction of any sort: no drug addictions, no hated, no insatiable desire for money, fame, fortune, dependency, co-dependency etc…).

One more thing, that points me to God’s desire to have individual intimate relationships with him is that in the beginning, God breathed the breath of life into Adam. How much more intimate can one get? God breathed the breath of Life into Adam…. I repeat, how much more intimate can one get? God desires to have an intimate relationship with him, that’s why we should find it strange when we think,”Urgh, I have to pray”… we really ought to be saying,” Wow, I get to pray!”. I mean… what an honour we have to spend time talking with our maker. Time in His presence. Time to tell Him anything and everything that we want… I could go on and on. But I know that if we (especially “if I”) could remain constantly conscious of this, then I would definitely be walking around with a greatness of the glory of God following me. What I mean is, I wouldn’t worry about tomorrow, coz I know who holds tomorrow.

And lastly, because God created you in His image, God demonstrated His wanting the very best for mankind. If there was a greater image than His, he would have done it, but He decided to create man in the best possible “mould” ever: His very own.

I ask again, how could God not be good?

And How can you and I not have God’s goodness at our core once we are born again. The Bible does say of you once you are saved,” Behold, you are a new creation. Old things are past, and behold all things are made new. ”


And once, he makes as new, we can claim what is meant for us, as it was in the beginning.


God bless you abundantly,


Mac

P.s. Jesus loves you more than words can say.