After a great week with my kids and grandkids, it’s also kind of great to be back at my desk this morning. Opening a new bible, preparing a new copy of my reading plan, putting my bookmarks in place, sharpening my colored pencils, and anticipating another year, Lord willing, of feeding on His word in the morning.

I read the cover of my reading plan and let the words sink in: “In the year ahead, ask God each day to speak directly to you from the Scripture portions you read. Be expectant, and let your continual exposure to God’s Word reshape your attitudes and behavior as you gain a better understanding of every part of His written testimony to us.”

Expectant. That’s the word. Expecting an encounter of the divine kind each time I open His Word. Believing that as I read and meditate I am being transformed by the renewing of my mind. Engaging in His work of conforming me to the image of His Son. Expectant.

And as I hover over my readings this morning what I’m reminded of is that my God is a creating God.

God’s creative nature clearly revealed in Genesis as He makes the heavens, the earth, and everything on the earth. His fingerprints of bringing things, even things without beginning, into being as I read in the opening verses of Matthew the birth story of the Savior through a meticulously engineered genealogy and a miraculously conceived child. His creative nature appearing again in Acts as there I find the beginnings of the eternally prevailing church of Christ.

Our God is a God who creates. And, praise be to God, a God who, with abundant grace, re-creates.

And what God makes . . . He makes good!

And God saw everything that He had made, and behold, it was very good.

(Genesis 1:31 ESV)

I’m chewing on the rhythm of creation. God determines. God declares. God deliberates.

The Creator determines to create. Taking a mass without form and void of life and systemically shaping and populating it. Making a world alive with creatures and people He desires to interact with.

He then declares His creation into being. Repeatedly God says, “Let there be . . .”

And then–and this is what has really grabbed me this morning–God pauses and deliberates. He reflects and contemplates over what He has just created and whispers, “It is good.” On the sixth day even more so. After all has been made, delighted, He nods His head and proclaims, “This is very good!”

God is a creator and what He creates is good, very good. And though marred by the fall, though corrupted by man’s disobedience and transgression, God determined to redeem, restore, and reconcile His sin-assaulted creation. And that through a new creation. And that through His Son, the Word who was in the beginning, the Word who is the Maker of all things (Jn. 1:1-3).

Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come. All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to Himself . . .

(2Corinthians 5:17-18a ESV)

In Christ? Then I’m part of the new creation.

Imperfect? Yup. Still trying to figure out this pilgrim way? You know it! Not there yet? Yes sir!

But good? Even very good? I’m thinkin’ . . .

Not because of who I am or what I’ve done, but because of who He is, the Creator who makes everything He makes very good.

I’m His work in progress. Possessor of the promise that the work He has begun in me He will complete (Php. 1:6). Confident that He is able to present His bride to Himself “in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish” (Eph. 5:27).

Created to be very good. Very good in Christ. Very good through Christ. Very good for Christ.

All through over-flowing and all-sufficient grace. All for His glory.

Amen?