Saturday, January 3, 2009

Noah and New Beginnings

Focus verses: Genesis 8:21 through Genesis 9:7.

Reading the Bible chronologically, we come to the story of Noah and the flood early in the year. If you were raised in church, you've known about Noah since the kindergarten teacher put yellow giraffes on a blue flannel-board.

But if we look closer, we see that the flood was God's decision in response to man's vile wickedness. Let's face it. The natural tendency of mankind is to get worse and worse -- not better and better. Left to our own devices, we drift further and further from God's plans for us.

But God started over. He found a pure remnant, Noah and his sons. He protected them from the cataclysmic flood. And then He commissioned mankind again. He wiped the slate clean and let us start over as in the beginning.

Look at the similarities.

God tells Noah and his sons to be fruitful and fill the earth.

And He reiterates man's authority upon the earth.

Then he make man an omnivore by giving man everything that lives and moves as food, just as He gave man the green plants earlier.

Our problems begin when we get so puffed up with our rights and what is our due that we forget that all - ALL - we have is a gift from God.

Father, God,

Keep us ever mindful that all we have is a result of Your love for us, not our own efforts or entitlements.

In Jesus' most precious name.
Amen

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