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By Stacy Wilson

Genesis 1:1-5
Acts 19:1-7
Mark 1:4-11

Right where you are, please pause for one moment to ask yourself if you have the power to create the heavens and the earth? Do you have the power to end human suffering, death, disease and destruction forever? Do you even have the power to direct your own life?

Every day, I?m reminded that I don?t. Now, I ask you: Who has the ability to rend the heavens and come down into the hearts of humanity to bring light, hope, justice, and healing in the midst of spiritual darkness, disease, poverty and depravity?

Who has the ability to instantaneously refashion hearts hardened and broken by the experiences of life and hearts of stone into vitally functioning organs beating for God?s glory?

Who can create out of nothingness extraordinary somethings and someones - creation, made for fellowship with its Creator? Who can take broken hearts, spirits and wills and transform them into lives of triumph, joy and purpose in a moment? Who can speak the word 'peace' and quell the greatest storms of life?

Say it with me: 'Only God can.'

Say it again: 'Only God can.'

Only God can intentionally, purposefully, exactly, perfectly, lovingly, graciously and rightly refashion us according to God?s glory. Only God can hover over the empty spaces of our lives and breathe into them meaning and purpose beyond our belief, imagination and comprehension.

The English transliteration of the Greek word 'genesis' means 'birth or new beginning.' In the book of Genesis we find these words:

'In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was empty, a formless mass cloaked in darkness. And the Spirit of God was hovering over its surface. Then God said, ?Let there be light and there was light.?'

Beloved, this same God that we read about in Genesis, that says, 'Let there be,' is the same God that is creating within the hearts of humankind even now a reason to exist -- to live, move and have being.

The same Triune God that hovered over the waters as stated in Genesis is the same God we read about in the New Testament Gospel attributed to Mark.

The God in Christ we find in Mark?s Gospel dwelt among his beloved people, fully human and fully divine, with the intention of showing the lost the way out of the human condition (sin) and the way to eternal healing, hope and life as they repent, turning from their way, to embrace and follow God?s way.

Unbelievable, I say. Remarkable and unfathomable is the reason why a completely holy and right God would desire to dwell with and give his life for us, yet God does and has.

To God I say, magnificent, loving, gracious Creator, you are worthy of all our praise, adulation and worship. Create within us clean hearts and renew the right spirit within us. Make us humble before you and lead and empower us by your Spirit. Take our lives and use them for your glory. Amen.

Stacy Wilson is associate pastor at Linthicum Heights UMC.