First God. In the beginning was God. We read God’s Word to find out more about God. The Bible is God’s Story. This part of God’s Story is how his created turn to evil and how it grieves Him. His heart breaks seeing his humans turning to all things not of Him—evil. Evil runs rampant and seems to be in charge. Evil brings confusion, chaos and corruption in the lives of His created human race. God looks over the situation and it breaks His heart. But we must understand that God’s grieving heart for his created, is not for Himself but for His humans! They are hurting themselves, maiming and killing each other, doing horrendous, evil things to one another that even if they lived through it all they will suffer forever from it. We must get a grip on the deep Love God has for all of us. God intervenes because He cannot stand by and watch humans destroy each other.
Then God sees Noah and his family. God knows Noah walks with Him and does what is right in God’s eyes. Noah has a family and cares for His family. Noah has not succumbed to the evil that is all around him in his neighborhood. So, right In the middle of chaos and corruption of evil that has no plan but to destroy, God comes with a plan and purpose for His created who love Him back. God provides a way out for Noah and his family.
God loves how Noah loves and honors Him. Though God’s heart is broken by the evil His created men and women are doing to each other, he sees hope for Noah. “But Noah was different. God liked what he saw in Noah.” I love that, don’t you? Noah was different. God liked what he saw in Noah.
I ask myself, am I so different in my world that I stand out as “different like Noah”, wanting nothing to do with evil?
Does God like what He sees in me?
Genesis 6, The Message
Giants in the Land
6 1-2 When the human race began to increase, with more and more daughters being born, the sons of God noticed that the daughters of men were beautiful. They looked them over and picked out wives for themselves.
3 Then God said, “I’m not going to breathe life into men and women endlessly. Eventually they’re going to die; from now on they can expect a life span of 120 years.”
4 This was back in the days (and also later) when there were giants in the land. The giants came from the union of the sons of God and the daughters of men. These were the mighty men of ancient lore, the famous ones.
Noah and His Sons
5-7 God saw that human evil was out of control. People thought evil, imagined evil—evil, evil, evil from morning to night. God was sorry that he had made the human race in the first place; it broke his heart. God said, “I’ll get rid of my ruined creation, make a clean sweep: people, animals, snakes and bugs, birds—the works. I’m sorry I made them.”
8 But Noah was different. God liked what he saw in Noah.
9-10 This is the story of Noah: Noah was a good man, a man of integrity in his community. Noah walked with God. Noah had three sons: Shem, Ham, and Japheth.
11-12 As far as God was concerned, the Earth had become a sewer; there was violence everywhere. God took one look and saw how bad it was, everyone corrupt and corrupting—life itself corrupt to the core.
13 God said to Noah, “It’s all over. It’s the end of the human race. The violence is everywhere; I’m making a clean sweep.
14-16 “Build yourself a ship from teakwood. Make rooms in it. Coat it with pitch inside and out. Make it 450 feet long, seventy-five feet wide, and forty-five feet high. Build a roof for it and put in a window eighteen inches from the top; put in a door on the side of the ship; and make three decks, lower, middle, and upper.
17 “I’m going to bring a flood on the Earth that will destroy everything alive under Heaven. Total destruction.
18-21 “But I’m going to establish a covenant with you: You’ll board the ship, and your sons, your wife and your sons’ wives will come on board with you. You are also to take two of each living creature, a male and a female, on board the ship, to preserve their lives with you: two of every species of bird, mammal, and reptile—two of everything so as to preserve their lives along with yours. Also get all the food you’ll need and store it up for you and them.”
22 Noah did everything God commanded him to do.
WHAT DO WE LEARN AND HOW DO WE RESPOND?
God intervenes and overcomes evil with a Plan to save the one and his family who “did everything God commanded him to do.” God pushes the reset button on His created earth to end evil’s rampant virus of corruption and chaos. We will learn more in the coming days of reading the story of God through Noah. But keep this thought in mind as we read: God’s love for each one of us. God grieves when we turn away from what He knows is best because of His great love for us.
How do we respond to God and be different like Noah? Go to Romans 12:1-3 for the answer. Read, think, pray and live what is given to us to help us:
“So, here’s what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life—your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life—and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him. Don’t become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You’ll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what he wants from you, and quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you.”
“I’m speaking to you out of deep gratitude for all that God has given me, and especially as I have responsibilities in relation to you. Living then, as every one of you does, in pure grace, it’s important that you not misinterpret yourselves as people who are bringing this goodness to God. No, God brings it all to you. The only accurate way to understand ourselves is by what God is and by what he does for us, not by what we are and what we do for him.” Romans 12:1-3, The Message
Again, we ask ourselves, as we read, think, pray and live what we know;
Am I different?
Does God like what He sees in me?
Am I doing what God asks because I KNOW God knows what is best for me?
Does God look around, over the earth to see whose heart is completely His? And he finds me?
Lord,
I pray daily for your help to live in ways that are pleasing to You for I know this is what is best for me because of your unconditional, relentless love for me! You know what is all around us, the good and the bad, and you lead us through it all to Your best for each of us. For this alone, I give you praise and thanksgiving! When we sin, you gave us a way out of evil’s hold on us, by giving us Jesus. Thank you, Jesus for saving us and putting us right with God and back on a track that leads to God. Thank you, God for intervening in my life as you did for Noah. I love you, Lord, with all my heart, mind and soul. There is no one like you. I trust and put all my hope in You alone.
In Jesus Name, Amen
Daily Manna (Coffee with Jesus) 