Episode Details

Prayer

Heavenly Father, I thank you for the privilege of this new day of life – I do not deserve this blessing. I thank you for preserving through another night of sleep, and I praise you for the many evident mercies that you extended to me yesterday. I look to you again on this new day – I am utterly inadequate to meet the challenges and difficulties of the day ahead. Without you grace, strength, and protection, I will surely fall, fail, and dishonour your name. Please meet me now in the weakness of my current estate, give me life and strength through your word I pray. Please keep my feet away from the paths of temptation, and deliver me from the evil one’s power and intention. Lord, please give me the wisdom I will need to fulfill the responsibilities that you have given me today. My hope is in you, I look to you for all me help. In Jesus’ name I pray, Amen.

Reading

Psalm 93 & Matt 24.

Gen 1:9-13.

“And God said, “Let the waters under the heavens be gathered together into one place, and let the dry land appear.” And it was so. 10. God called the dry land Earth, and the waters that were gathered together he called Seas. And God saw that it was good. 11. And God said, “Let the earth sprout vegetation, plants yielding seed, and fruit trees bearing fruit in which is their seed, each according to its kind, on the earth.” And it was so. 12. The earth brought forth vegetation, plants yielding seed according to their own kinds, and trees bearing fruit in which is their seed, each according to its kind. And God saw that it was good. 13. And there was evening and there was morning, the third day.”

Meditation

There’s no place like home. There’s nothing quite like being in your own place. Maybe you’ve sensed this for yourself, whether it be an attachment to your country of origin, or the feeling you get after traveling for a long time – it’s good to get home again. And if even that’s not part of your experience, maybe you can relate to the idea of not having a place – just the sense that you’re not quite sure where you belong, but you know that you want to belong... somewhere.

Looking at day three in the creation account, the question of belonging is very much a key issue, because God’s intention for the earth was and is to make it a place to belong. First, it was to be a place where his presence can dwell (as we saw on days one and two); but second, it was to be a place where we can belong in the presence of God as well. In Isaiah 45:18 we read: “For thus says the LORD, who created the heavens (he is God!), who formed the earth and made it (he established it; he did not create it empty, he formed it to be inhabited!)”. This, in a sense, is really what day three is all about, it’s about making a place where we can belong. It shows us that God has made a place for us to be, a place in which we can dwell and find purpose and meaning.

With that general meditation in our minds, let’s start with the first and most basic question here: What was God doing on day three? There are three basic elements in our text that show us what God is doing here. First: God gathers the water into one place to form the seas; second: God makes dry land appear; and third God makes the earth productive. Seas, land, and productivity (i.e. plants) – that’s day three in a nutshell. In this study, we’ll start with the waters of creation.

Water is a very important element in the creation account. So far in our studies of the Genesis prologue, we haven’t given any real attention to it – it’s time to address that. To start with, as we saw back in verse two, the waters were there from the beginning – before the creation work had begun. We also saw a significant movement of waters on day two, as God separated between the waters below and above the expanse. But why water? What is the significance of water? I think there are at least two major p