Beginnings and Endings


"In the beginning, God..." (Genesis 1:1a).

"Amen. Come, Lord Jesus. The grace of the Lord Jesus be with God’s people. Amen" (Revelation 22:20-21).

In the beginning, there was God. Or, as John says, he was before the beginning (John 1:1-2). When we talk of the beginning, we're referring to the beginning of conditions created by God in which we could exist. The beginning of the world. The beginning of humanity. The beginning of time. Before that, there was God. Don't ask me to explain that, because my brain can't begin to process life without time, life before time. You'll need to find someone much smarter than me to even attempt an explanation (if it's even possible). Besides, if I could explain everything about God, he wouldn't be worthy of worship. There are some things I understand and many things I don't, and one of the things I don't is this: before the beginning, there was God.

The book of Revelation, in which the apostle John gets a glimpse of the end of time, tells us that in the ending, God will be there. It will be the arrival of God's Son, Jesus, back on earth that will signal the end. Time shall be no more. Everything will become like it was before the beginning, with one critical difference: those who have trusted in Christ will be there with God after the ending. Transformed to live for eternity (again, I can't begin to explain that, nor can I fathom a life without time), we will be with him and he will be with us.

God was in the beginning, before the beginning.

God will be at the ending, after the ending.

And the best news for today, at the beginning of this new year, is this: God will be there and is there at all of our beginnings and endings, all of the moments in between THE beginning and THE ending. He is there. He is present. He is with us. That was and is the great hope of Christmas: Emmanuel, God with us. He is here. He is present. He is near.

And if God is with us, we need not fear (see Romans 8:31). We can walk, run, jump, hop into this new year with confidence and hope because God is with us. He was in the beginning. He will be in the end. And he is with us today.

Comments

  1. Whenever the fact of God always being pops up, my mind goes into a tailspin and I have to stop the thought immediately. Mind...blown!!! This is all so true and SO reassuring. Life without Him is impossible to imagine and something I would never want to do.

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