January 1 Daily Devotional

Genesis 1

“In the beginning,” so we read in the first verse of the Bible, “God created the heaven and the earth.” The eternal God creates.

“To create” means to make something out of nothing, or to bring into being that which does not exist. God simply said, “Let there be” and the universe came into being.

In this first chapter the earth is described as “without form, and void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the waters.” The first thing God made was light. And he said, “Let there be light: and there was light. And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from darkness.” He called the light “Day” and the darkness “Night.”

On the second day God made the firmament to divide “the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament.” He called the firmament “Heaven.”

On the third day God said, “Let the waters under the heaven be gathered together unto one place, and let the dry land appear: and it was so. And God called the dry land Earth; and the gathering together of the waters called the Sea.” God also made the earth to “bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit after his kind, whose seed is in itself.”

Though God had created light on the first day, yet there were no sun, moon nor stars. So on the fourth day God said, “Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and years: and let them be for lights in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth: and it was so.” So God made two great lights: the sun to rule over the day, and the moon to rule over the night. He made the stars also.

God spoke again on the fifth day and said, “Let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature that hath life, and fowl that may fly above the earth in the open firmament of heaven. And God created great whales, and every living creature that moveth, which the waters brought forth abundantly, after their kind, and every winged fowl after his kind.”

On the sixth day God “made the beast of the earth after his kind, and cattle after their kind, and everything that creepeth upon the earth after his kind … And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing … So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.”