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Episode 77. Jesus is the Alpha and Omega of God’s Story (my beginning and my end)

Hello human.

I started Genesis on Friday, December 15 and completed Revelation on Friday, February 16. I had a timeline and some maps. I was focused on taking 100% responsibility for it, on my own.

I wanted to experience being a woman on the journey, deeply immersed in God’s Story.

In episode 75 and 76 I shared my first two insights. 

Insight No. 1:  The Covenant comes from the Creator.

That Jesus Christ is the mediator of the New Covenant, and His death on the cross is the basis of the promise. His blood is the seal. Whatever relationship I have with God, begins with His Son’s blood.

No one initiates a covenant with God.

To stay in His presence and walk in His covenant means to be willing and obedient to His words.  To understand why He is called the Lamb of God.

Insight No. 2: God goes before me in silence.

God’s story is about how He goes before His chosen people. We are given 300+ stories in the lives of those who came in and out of His journey, all those generations, with a God who sees all, hears all, speaks all in the language of His sovereignty.

No one goes before God.

Isaiah 45: 3

3 I will give you hidden treasures,

    riches stored in secret places,

so that you may know that I am the Lord,

    the God of Israel, who summons you by name.

God goes before.

We are summoned into His Truth, by a Covenant God that is waiting for us.

Every Story Has an Alpha and Omega

This brings me to insight #3 today: Jesus is the Alpha and Omega of God’s story. My beginning and my end.

In episode 76 I shared Ephesians 3:20.

Ephesians 3:20

20 Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us,

The power of Jesus that fulfilled the prophecies, the law of Moses, the power that answered to the fall of humanity—this “power” is the work within us.

Throughout the Old Testament the Jewish people compromised God’s divine image with the choices they made every day.

But Jesus fulfilled God’s image on earth.

Jesus is the Alpha and Omega of God’s story. He is my beginning and end.

We are Created in the Image of our Creator

I am created in the image of my Creator. I want to affirm my understanding of being created in God’s image, and why this affirmation is central to my witness.

I want to affirm my understanding of my origin, the premise of God in my life.

I was born of His image. He is the source.

I want to understand this more deeply.

Genesis 1

The Beginning

1 In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. 2 Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.

3 And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. 4 God saw that the light was good, and he separated the light from the darkness. 5 God called the light “day,” and the darkness he called “night.” And there was evening, and there was morning—the first day.

And with five more “And God Said” declarations, one after the other, by verse 26, He had brought into existence the creation.

26 Then God said, “Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.”

Then God gave man everything He had created in verse 29.

And It Was So

Chapter 1 ends with four words that sum up all that had happened by God’s Word. “And it was so.”

This is the best definition of God’s nature for me. He is exactly who He says He is.

And He is always so.

We read “God said” in Genesis Chapter 1 of the Old Testament eight times. Through speaking, out of His nature, He created the world and mankind.

And consider the weight of Exodus 3:14

God said to Moses, “I am who I am. This is what you are to say to the Israelites: ‘I am has sent me to you.’”

I admit, I do not understand this, and wondering where this goes… but I am sure of the starting point.

God is the Word. That is why scripture is God-breathed, just like the waters, earth, the stars, the sky, and the creation of human life, and all life. The closer I grow toward Him, the more I want to be in His Word.

In His presence.

We Choose Created Things Rather than the Creator

When the Israeli nation was exiled from Egypt, taking passage toward the promised land of Canaan, God gave Moses the law on Mt Sinai. How to conduct themselves to be obedient to God. All of the commands God asked of His chosen nation to respond to Him as the Creator.

But because of our free will, also a gift from God, everything comes with a choice. And we choose to serve created things rather than the creator.

Exodus 20:3-6

3 “You shall have no other gods before me. 4 “You shall not make for yourself an image in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below. 5 You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, punishing the children for the sin of the parents to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me, 6 but showing love to a thousand generations of those who love me and keep my commandments.

The Bible mentions idolatry around 50 times, condemning it in all its forms. Throughout the Old Testament the Israeli nation, the judges, the kings, the Jewish people, the Gentiles, served created things rather than the creator. They made their own images to worship.

The Jewish people sometimes worshiped God and other gods of pagan nations, false gods, false gods, false gods. Worshiping that which did not create them.

Human nature is always a derivative of God’s nature. Everyone has a divine start because of who He is.

Back to the Beginning to Get to the End

So, it is no big revelation that we must go back to the beginning to get to the end.

The apostle John begins his gospel with this.

John 1:1

The Word Became Flesh

1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

That Jesus was with God from the beginning, His origin was in heaven, and he returned to heaven upon saving the world for whosoever believes.

I have often wondered what it meant that Jesus was the Word, that Jesus is the Living word of God. Using the Greek word, Jesus is the true “Logos” of God. And yet fully man. He came to reveal God to us. To show us how life should be done on earth, and redeem us from the fall, the sin that separates our human nature from God’s image.

This concept feels cinematic now, having just completed my Bible journey. This is a convicting storyline. In a very good way.

Jesus is with God in heaven from the beginning. That is Genesis 1:1.

Jesus becomes the living word of God on earth for 33 years. Luke 2:11

Jesus is resurrected in God’s image. Luke 24

I am created in God’s image.

By my human nature, I fell with Adam and Eve.

But I have seen the Garden in my soul.

Because I am created in God’s image.

By my human nature, I compromise God’s image.

The Ending to God’s Story

The Alpha and the Omega are the first and last letters of the Greek alphabet, used to designate the comprehensiveness of God, implying that God includes all that can be. As the Alpha and Omega, He existed before creation and was with God in the beginning. He is, therefore, eternal.

Revelation 1:8

8 “I am the Alpha and the Omega,” says the Lord God, “who is, and who was, and who is to come, the Almighty.”

Revelation 21:6

6 He said to me: It is done. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End. To the thirsty I will give water without cost from the spring of the water of life.

Revelation 22:12-13

12 Look, I am coming soon! My reward is with me, and I will give to each person according to what they have done. 13 I am the Alpha and the Omega, the First and the Last, the Beginning and the End.

Jesus was with God in the beginning, and He proclaims that He is the one who conquers the ending to God’s story. His Heavenly Father’s story.

The Omega is the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus. It is the prologue to when He returns to claim His sovereignty over the world. With all our earthly living inbetween.

This sounds so grandiose, other worldly, and it is, but it has all the power to make my life on earth such a gloriously illuminated path to invite others to walk on. I know how God’s story ends, and where my journey is taking me in it.

This also means that when I feel confused, disoriented about my direction, and you human, when you feel lost, or indecisive about choices you have, or you feel defeated by your own mind games, or life’s missteps, unpredictable challenges, Jesus has already lived, died, and has been resurrected for the heavenly ending you will share with Him.

If you believe and accept Him as your Savior and Lord.

If you have not done this, now, this moment, is your time. He is your Alpha and Omega. If you do not know how, and you need someone to support you, let me know at deeperwater@kathrynbise.com.

…

The ending, the final day to my Bible read-through was this. When I got to page 1140, the last page of Revelation, mid-morning, my reading decelerated into what I would call a divine state. I do not feel divine often. I felt so close to my Creator.

Revelation 22:18

18 I warn everyone who hears the words of the prophecy of this scroll: If anyone adds anything to them, God will add to that person the plagues described in this scroll. 19 And if anyone takes words away from this scroll of prophecy, God will take away from that person any share in the tree of life and in the Holy City, which are described in this scroll.

20 He who testifies to these things says, “Yes, I am coming soon.”

Amen. Come, Lord Jesus.

When I finished reading this final passage, I closed my Bible, kissed it, pulled it to my heart, then turned toward Kitty Hawk Bay. I closed my eyes and opened them with wiser human tears. And a heart flooded with overwhelming reverence for a God that cannot be contained by anything man knows, feels, or believes.

I thanked God for His story. His sovereignty.

I thanked God that I am in His story.

As a believer. A follower of the Alpha and Omega.

His beloved Son is Risen.

He is my Omega.

Jesus lifts me up with Him in His final prayer to His Heavenly Father before He is arrested. Episode 78.