THE CHARACTER OF GOD IS REVEALED IN CREATION

Creation is a demonstration of God's character. God always creates and works in accordance with His nature. His surroundings are formed by His character and they reveal His nature.

Let us take a look now at what He has created.

Then God said, "Let the waters abound with an abundance of living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth across the face of the firmament of the heavens" (Gen. 1:20).

Notice the word "abundance," and remember that God expresses His character in what He creates. He did not just create three or four fish. He created them in abundance. God always does things properly. If you stop to look at the world around you, both the microscopic world and the visible world, you will notice that there is ample quantity and abundance in every area.

There are millions of flowers which remain unseen by man. A human authority or committee would not allow this, claiming, "Having lots of flowers that no one can see is wasteful. We need to do something about this. Let's put asphalt there instead and move all the flowers to the center of town." But this is not the way God is. He has the resources to afford abundance.

Ever since I was a child I have wanted to see the Himalayas. A few years ago, I was given the opportunity to visit Bangladesh and later" Nepal. Nepal, Tibet and the Himalayas are known as the top of the world. While I was there, God said to me, "This is the best view of the world. Just look at the mountains!"

It was spectacular. I could not get enough of it—and when I left I still had a picture of those mountains in my mind. Something had happened. God had placed a permanent picture of that mountain range in my spirit, and since then, it lias been much easier for me to think big.

If you are open to Him, God will use His creation to do something in you and for you. The Bible tells us that He speaks through His creation, Why do you think He created all those mountain ranges and peaks if not to challenge us to do the same—in the spirit? Why do you think He created such amazingly intricate flowers, some of which are so small one can hardly see them? It is because He wants to show us that if He can do as such for flowers, how much more important to Him are the minute details o four lives.

Certain theologians say that it is wrong to think that God cares about the small, . everyday occurrences in our lives. But our God does care. My God is the God of abun¬dance who meets every one of my needs— both the little details and the big issues.

God' demonstrates His nature and character in creation. i He reveals that He is a God of abundance. He can afford to create things in abundance, He is not stingy with anything.

We read about creation in Genesis 1:31, Then God saw everything that He had made, and indeed it was very good. When God was finished, He put His stamp of approval on creation: "Made in heaven!"

God deposited gold and other precious metals in the mountains. He put reproductive ability in the earth and placed man over it, to tend it and put it to use. In doing all this He said, "It is good." The devil, on the other hand, tells us creation is evil. "Be careful!" he says, "it's dangerous!" But God called it good and accepted it. It is important that we too have this view of created, material things. They are not evil, bad or dangerous; they are good.

In Genesis 2:8 we read that God planted a garden. He planted the garden eastward in Eden and there He put the man whom He had formed. The name of the garden was Eden. In Hebrew this word means riches, abundance and delight. These were the surroundings in which God put man.

GOD CREATED BEAUTY

In other words, God placed mankind in an environment of riches, abundance and delight, Genesis 2:9 says, "And out of the ground the Lord God made every tree grow that is pleasant to the sight and good for food."

God has never considered beauty and good taste taboo. The devil has perverted these things. He has made people hedonistic and sensual, living only by their feelings and completely imprisoned by sensuality. As a result, Christians have responded in fear by rejecting anything that stimulates the five senses. They have difficulty permitting themselves to enjoy things and being afraid of-becoming "worldly," they live stingy lives.

God wants you to be neither greedy nor to live only after your senses. However, He does not want you to dissociate yourself from what He has created.

There was a time in my early Christian life when I thought it was wrong to do just about everything. I believed that getting God to bless me was extremely hard, but I discovered that this is not at all the case. God created beautiful colors and beauty itself and therefore, He has nothing against you using them. God desires to encourage you and set you free in this area.

Freedom outside of Jesus Christ is a destructive force. We must not use our freedom to indulge in the flesh. But if you are filled with the Holy Spirit, love Jesus and have made Him your Lord, you have the right to enjoy and bless others, with all that God has given you. This was God's original intention for your life, so you need never apologize for it.

If your motives are pure and you have a longing to follow Christ Jesus, it is not difficult to part with things when prompted by God to do so. Your possessions do not own or bind you. God's intention was for you to eat of the trees that were good for food and pleasant to the sight.

GOD HAS NO LACK

Now a river went out of Eden to water the garden, and from there it parted and became four riverheads. The name of the first is Pishon; it is the one which skirts the whole land of Havilah, where there is gold. And the gold of that land is good. Bdellium and the onyx stone are there (Gen 2:10-12).

God did not warn Adam and Eve about going to this land or tell them that they would fall into sin because of the gold and precious stones there. It was God who put these things in the earth and here, in this scripture, He is actually describing the site. He even says that the gold there was good.

Gold is good when used for the right things. It is not sinful in itself, otherwise God would not have created it. Heaven is full of gold. The temple in Jerusalem was bulging with it. It is the greed for gold that is sin—walking on others to get at it. Gold is not a sin, it is a metal! Metals are created by God and deposited in the earth so that we can discover them and use them to glorify Him.

When God viewed His creation prior to the Fall, He saw that it was good. By saying this, He meant that it was perfect and without deficiency. When God created the world and man, there was no such thing as poverty. Poverty is completely foreign to the nature of God, because He is the God of abundance. Before the thief came poverty did not exist. When someone steals from you, you become poor. Need rules when you do not have things. That is why Jesus calls the devil a thief. He steals, kills and destroys.

Poverty was non-existent before the Fall, but after the Fall came spiritual and physical death, sickness, shortage, loneliness, hatred, murder, poverty and so on. These entered the world as a direct result of sin. Poverty did not come from God. There was no poverty in the Garden of Eden, otherwise God would have called it poverty, deficiency and malnutrition. Instead, He put man in a garden of abundance, riches and delight.

Remember also, that there will be no deficiency in the new heavens and the new earth.

A HIGHER LEVEL OF POVERTY

We must understand that there is a curse over the earth and over all of creation, and that if it were not for Jesus, we would have to wear ourselves out just to survive.

In 1982, when I returned to Sweden from America, where I had been attending Bible school, the first thing the devil told me was, "You can preach faith and healing here but not finances because people will think you are Americanized, so don't say anything about money!"

Just as I was about to accept this thought, I recognized where it came from. The Lord then spoke to me and said, "You need to preach prosperity in Sweden more than anything else."

I was amazed at this. Sweden is one of the most highly developed countries in the world. "Surely no one is poor in this country," I thought. But God showed me the people. He showed me how worn their clothing was and how they could hardly afford the basic necessities of life. God said, "Look at them! They are in need." He reminded me of the many people who are up to their ears in credit card bills. "Sweden is a poor country, although its poverty is on a much higher level than many other countries," He said.

The newspapers report about the large numbers of people in Sweden who live in poverty and want. The price of food is high, take-home pay has decreased and people are tied to their credit cards. They buy and borrow foolishly and end up in even greater bondage, under the heavy yoke of financial burden. Jesus wants to lift these burdens.

We all know that in the end times, the devil want's to make the whole world part of the same credit account and eventually, put that account number on their foreheads. We, on the other hand, will continue to teach about financial prosperity as we become increasingly dependent on "El-Shaddai."

Rev. Dr. Ulf Ekman is the Director of the Board for Word of Life Ministries. Together with his wife Birgjtta, he travels extensively around the world establishing centers for leadership training.

This article is an excerpt from Rev. Dr. UlfEkman s book, Financial Freedom. The book is available at Attributes Bookstore located at City Harvest Church, Singapore Expo Hall 8