"In the beginning, God..."
What beautiful words to start the new year...in the beginning. These words appear at the start of the Old Testament, in the psalms, at the start of the book of John and the book of Hebrews. Beginnings permeate God's Word. He is the God of new beginnings. Praise God, He doesn't look at our past, but He meets us where we are...right now...at this very moment. Every moment for us is a new beginning with Him!

In the commentary reading for today, this basic question was posed, "What would life be like without the SUN?"  The obvious answer would be, "There would be nothing - no life at all."
Spiritually speaking, "What would life be like without the SON?  Same obvious answer, "There would be nothing - no life at all (no eternal life).

Concerning creation:
The length of each day can be explained with this.  However long God took to do the creating, that's how long the day was. The Hebrew word for day is "yom" and has several definitions, such as "a division of time" or a "period of time".  Time itself (as we know it) was not a factor until the end of Day 4 when God created the lights in the heavens, including the sun, moon, and stars to regulate seasons and times.  And to regulate the feast days that He will establish with Moses in the future.

On Day 1 light is created. Yet God did not create the sun until Day 4.  What was the light that God created on Day 1?

Proverbs 8:22

"The LORD brought me forth as the first of his works, before his deeds of old; I was appointed from eternity, from the beginning, before the world began.   
Continue reading in Proverbs to know that wisdom was the first of His creations. Wisdom is the knowledge that there is good and there is evil.  Wisdom (Jesus) was the craftsman at God's side doing the creating.
Light (day) is good. Dark (night) is bad. Contrast this to Jesus, the light of the world and Satan, the prince of darkness.

John 8:12
When Jesus spoke again to the people, he said, "I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life."
We are walking in wisdom if we have Jesus, the light of the world, the light of life.

Rev 21:23
The city does not need the sun or the moon to shine on it, for the glory of God gives it light, and the Lamb is its lamp.
Jesus was the light at the beginning and He will be the light at the end.

On Day 3 the dry ground appeared and then God said, "Let the land produce vegetation..."
God prepared the land, the dry ground, and "seeded" it.  The land was ready to bring forth the vegetation from the seeds when God created the sun on the fourth day. The seeds were not germinated until the fourth day.  More information on this can be found in Genesis 2.  Notice in Gen. 2:8, God planted a garden in Eden.  He planted the full vegetation in the garden.  In the rest of the world He sowed the seeds.

At the end of the first six days of creation, these words are written, "And there was evening and morning...". These words were not written at the end of the seventh day. God had completely finished creating. We are living the seventh day. These words are the reason that the Jewish day begins at sundown. Evening comes first.

Can we even begin to imagine how wonderful life was for Adam and Eve?  In the garden, work consisted of just reaching out and picking food from the trees.  There was no real work involved.  They were allowed to eat from any tree (including the tree of life) except the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.  As long as they ate of the tree of life, they had the potential to live forever. The Garden of Eden was a perfect place to live, until Satan (inhabiting the serpent) entered the picture.

When Satan tempted Eve to sin, he used doubt as his tool, "Did God really say...". He planted a seed of doubt. Which is exactly what he still does with each of us. He tries to place a bit of doubt in the mind of believers.

One of the consequences of Eve's disobedience was that her pains in childbearing would increase.  Increase from what??? This implies that there were babies born to Adam and Eve before the fall.  The Bible is silent about how long they lived in the garden before being tempted by Satan.

Once Adam and Eve sinned against God and realized their sin, they tried to cover it up.  This didn't really cover the sin.  So God sacrificed the first animals as a covering for their nakedness, a foreshadowing of the sacrifices to follow, sacrifices that had to be done for the atonement for sin, a covering of the sin temporarily.     Sacrifices had to be done repeatedly in order for sins to be "covered".  It is the first shed blood of the innocent to cover the sin of the guilty.  This foreshadowed Jesus' sacrifice on the cross.  Did Adam and Eve know about the cross?  Did God tell them about the plan of redemption?

Aren't we glad that Jesus became our permanent sacrifice, our atonement for sins forever!

Heb 10:22
let us draw near to God with a sincere heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled to cleanse us from a guilty conscience and having our bodies washed with pure water.

Jesus didn't just cover our sins, but He cleansed us from a guilty conscience. Let us draw near to Him as He desires to draw near to us.