Christ Church Daily Devotion June 17 2024

The transcript is a daily devotion from Christ Church discussing the story of creation in Genesis. It emphasizes that God saw all that he had made and it was very good, and on the seventh day, he rested, blessing it and making it holy. The transcript highlights the poetic nature of the creation story and the importance of caring for God's creation. It also emphasizes the significance of the Sabbath as a day of rest and worship. The transcript ends with a prayer thanking God for the lessons taught in the story of creation and the gift of the Sabbath. Welcome to Christ Church's Daily Devotion for June 17, 2024. Today we will be reading from Genesis chapter 1 verse 31 through chapter 2 verse 3. God saw all that he had made, and it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning the sixth day. Thus the heavens and the earth were completed in all their vast array. By the seventh day God had finished the work he had been doing. So on the seventh day he rested from all his work. Then God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it he rested from all the work of creating that he had done. This ends the first story of creation, and it is told as poetry. We think of poetry as writing with rhyming last words in sentences or verses. Hebrew poetry was marked by repetition of important words or phrases, establishing a pattern of rhythm. For example, each day of God's creating work begins with, and God said let. God thus speaks light, sky, and land, plants, heavenly bodies, animals, and finally human beings into being. Each day ends with God's repeated observation that it is good. When it was all done, God expressed that it was very good. There is a lesson here for us that God's creation must remain intact, in harmony, and cared for by us. When I was a child, I would hear the verses of God resting on the seventh day. I would have this mental picture of a tired being, sitting with hat off, enjoying the breeze, and recovering. God does not grow tired and weary, but God's resting on the seventh day made it a Sabbath, a holy day for us to rest and worship, a wonderful gift that we should never, ever let slip away in our busy lives. Your personal worship option today? Thank you, almighty God, for the lessons you teach us, even in the story of creation. Thank you for providing all that we need to sustain our lives, and thank you for the gift of the Sabbath. Help us to keep it holy, separate from other days, and a time for being refreshed in you. Amen.