Today’s Passage: Genesis 7

The flood was the worst catastrophe and the worst judgment ever seen upon the Earth. It came in a time when the bible tells us the thoughts of all men’s hearts were evil continually and violence filled the whole Earth. The flood brought massive destruction that could have wiped out all life on this planet, but even in this moment of divine wrath, God’s grace and mercy shine through, as does his heart to teach and instruct us. Eight imperfect, flawed people who loved him and trusted him obeyed a command to prepare for the disaster and build an ark, and they carried out the designs of grace that God had placed in Noah’s heart, and he sealed them up safely and preserved them from the penalty that came upon the rest of the world.

The bible tells us Noah was a righteous man, but we know he and his wife and children were only clothed by faith in Christ’s righteousness. Why? All of us imperfect, sin-prone people on this earth are descended from Noah. By faith, he was saved, and it was accounted to him for righteousness, not by his work of building the ark, but the faith that led him to work out what God gave freely. So when the destructive rains come and the flood waters are rising in your life, remember God has already called you by grace and completed a secure ark of protection in the Cross.  It could not have been a pleasure cruise to be on a boat at drift on raging flood waters, with pairs of every wild animal and seven pairs of every kosher creature destined for the dinner table. Noah’s family still suffered hardship and loss, but God brought them through it safely and he will see us through this present troubled times as well.

Lord, we thank you for your grace and mercy even in times of judgment and in times where we suffer due to the sins of others. Grant us the ears to hear your instructions and the faith to carry them out. Enable us to trust in your wisdom and that even when you allow pain and destruction in our lives, you intend to bring good through this somehow.  Increase our faith and trust also, so we will be comfortable also being honest with you about how we feel on the journey. In Jesus’ name we pray, amen.

Yes, I am thankful for a God who demands absolute loyalty and obedience from his servants and children, a God who is intolerant of anyone seeking to rival him in his glory, especially in terms of power over others, or even over ourselves.  I am thankful for a God who is a perfectionist in the extreme, allowing not the slightest spot, blemish, wrinkle, or stain into his spiritual presence in Heaven.

I am thankful for a God who has decreed a death penalty for any and all infractions of his law without exception, who cannot be moved to change his mind and change the rules based upon an emotional appeal to hard circumstances, but always carries out his decrees. I am thankful for an obstinate God who never changes his ways, never changes who he is and what he believes, never waivers on what he hates and what he loves, for any reason.

I am thankful because this God is just, reliable, trustworthy, and dependable, powerful enough and willing to protect us from harm and avenge us of wrongs.

I am also thankful this God looked down on a world that hates him for all of the above things that I would praise him for, saw that this world was full of everything that he hates, saw that we were hopelessly unable to ever measure up to his standards, all of us condemned to die and that our spirits, though designed to dwell in a body of flesh and to be in his presence, would be left disembodied and spiritually separated from his presence for all eternity.

I am thankful that this god so loathed by the world, so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten son to pay the penalty of our sin and die in our place, so that we could be washed clean of our sin and purified in his blood. I am thankful he sent his Holy Spirit to dwell in us, so we can learn to walk in his way rather than continue to follow after the corruption of the mortal flesh we will trade one fine day for new, immortal, sinless and flawless bodies worthy to be with Him.

I am thankful that my God is both simultaneously a Just, Jealous, Holy, Unwavering, Unmovable, Unshakable, Authoritarian King of Kings and a Loving, Merciful, Good, Gracious, Patient, Gentle, Humble Savior and Redeemer.

I am thankful that the power of sin has already been defeated on the Cross and that it is only a matter of time before this long cosmic war is over and the last battle fought. I am thankful that, by grace, through faith alone,  I can stand with the Creator of the Universe in the battle against sin and overcome rather than rebel, wallow in sin, and find myself cast out with the Lawless One. I am thankful that God has begun a good work of eradicating sin and imperfection in me and that he will continue to carry out his work in me until the day of His Coming.

I am thankful even us rebels who have betrayed our Heavenly citizenship again and again, going the way of the enemy culture all around us, can always  humbly bow our knees to the King of Kings and be reconciled to him and forgiven.

Look at the machines we have made. What computer program would dare say to its coder, “You have coded me wrong. I will ignore your instructions and do what is right in my own eyes”? Would it not be contemptuous, self-righteous, and arrogant of that program? Would we not judge it as being buggy and broken and in need of either repair or to be thrown away and replaced?

Yet that is what we have done and said to our Father and maker.

Who among us would say to a woman being abused that she should change who she is, deny her character and alter her personality and what she believes and loathes to please the will of a controlling person who will not love her for who she is, only what he wants her to be? Yet that is how we treat God, expecting him to change who he is or we will reject him.

Do you ask, “when have I rejected God?” By rejecting how he designed us to operate, which is but an outgrowth of and reflection of his very nature.

?”But Christ told me that he values a relationship with me more than his rules and acknowledged to me that my way was better.” Little one, that was a demon who hates you and wants to destroy you and leave you eternally at odds with God. It is written clearly, “I the Lord do not change. My ways are higher than your ways,  and my thoughts higher than your thoughts.” Think, child, what created thing is more knowledgeable and knows better than its creator? God’s word is eternal, it never changes and it is never void (empty and unfulfilled.) Truth is not a relative, nebulous concept that changes with the times. Truth is a person, and one of his traits is being steadfast, stable, and sure. He never changes. Jesus Christ is the Truth and he is the same yesterday, today, and forever.

Look again at your machines and how quickly you would cast judgment and either bend it to your will and or destroy it, but God has been slow to wrath and patient, giving you undeserved blessings and benefits, to show you he is worthy of the trusting obedience and faith that our computers mistakenly have in us. He even sent his own son to pay the penalty for our wrongdoing and enable us to be reconciled to him and function again as he designed us to. Unlike us with our creations, our creator gives us a choice between a system-wide restoration to our original manufacturing settings, or to continue to be good only for the trash.

Let us choose then this day to not be foolish and contend with our maker, but confess our sin, humbly ask his forgiveness and, being reconciled to the Lord our God and Father in spirit and in truth, acknowledge him in all of our ways and honor him as the righteous king over all the Earth.

Clothe yourselves, all of you, with humility toward one another, for “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.”  Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God so that at the proper time he may exalt you. (1 Peter 5:5b-6)

I know what some of you are thinking: the title and this verse don’t match. Points to you for paying attention. Others I’m sure got only as far as the title before they stopped there, thinking, “Wait, that’s backwards, the bible tells us not to think too highly of ourselves.”

Yes, it does, but if you’re mentally correcting me,  you’re likely not afflicted with arrogance in reality and likely in no need of a lesson on humility. Our focus today is the part about the humble being exalted by God at the proper time.

Thing is, too many of us haven’t been taught humility right. We’ve been told to get our faces down on the floor and keep them there by abusers who misuse the bible to keep us “in our place,” which is in their control and serving them rather than God. Abusers trained us to equate being humble with thinking lowly of ourselves. So the proper time comes, and  God sends someone to come to us and lift us up as he promised, we rebel against His will and reject him.

Maybe we don’t out right rebuke the vessel of his grace, but we usually do politely ignore the person “tempting me to sinful pride” or we subtly reject God with an audaciously hypocritical, “thank the Lord.” We may claim we’re only instructing a misguided person to give credit where credit is due. In reality, we’re not the Lord and can’t know for sure that they haven’t offered him thanks, too. So we have no business saying something so rude and judgmental. That answer springs from spiritual arrogance, not humility.

The true humble answer to gratitude and/or praise is a sincere “You’re welcome” or “Thank you.” After the simple courtesy, if the person isn’t a believer, by all means, take the opportunity to tell them about the hope within you, if God leads.

On the flip side, while pride leads to a fall, thinking lowly of ourselves follows being already fallen and keeps us unable to get up because we think we can’t.

We tell ourselves we’re losers. We tell ourselves we can’t win. We can’t lose weight. We can’t stop getting drunk all of the time. We can’t resist the temptation to sin sexually. We can’t control our tempers. We can’t, we can’t, we can’t.

Brothers and sisters, whatever weakness we are struggling with today, telling ourselves we can’t overcome it, God is holding out his hand to us, and saying  to stop thinking so lowly of ourselves. Confess your weakness to God, accept the affirmation and encouragement he offers, and let him exalt you from the low position of guilty sinner to the saint on high that you are in Christ by grace.

Lord, forgive us for thinking too lowly of ourselves. Help us to stop seeing ourselves through the darkness of the failures, flaws, and mistakes of the past and present. Help us to focus on the good work you are doing in us and to believe that is who we truly are and who we can become with your spirit of power, love, and self control/sound mind in us. In Jesus name we pray, amen.

It is so easy to read this verse and think about all of “those people” who don’t understand the things of God, or rather who call our own doctrinal beliefs, personal convictions, and religious practices silly or flat out wrong. But I believe the Holy Spirit today is redirecting us from “those people” to “us people.”

We each have a body. We live in sinful, broken, corrupt flesh, in an equally sinful, broken, corrupt culture. By default, all of us reason according to those forces. If we don’t train ourselves to do otherwise, we will even read the bible through the distorting lens of our cultural and personal experiences.

Yes, us people have a “natural person.” We do also have a “spiritual person,” but we’re better acquainted with the easier-to-see natural person. That is, after all, who we are according to our upbringings at the hands of broken people, damage from our fallen environment, and our DNA, which often contains coding errors. Our spirit’s condition was so bad, we all require a spirit transplant from Jesus, and have already received it if we are of his body.

Brothers and Sisters and fellow transplant recipients, humility compels us to realize we all still live in “natural person” bodies on this earth.  Don’t shove him in a closet and pretend he’s not there. If not watched carefully, he influences how “us spiritual persons” understand spiritual things. He leads us to reject spiritual callings as being ungodly folly in our understanding. At the same time, he leads us to flip ungodly ways into holy ways and causes us to misidentify worldly wisdom as spiritual wisdom. Let us have true spiritual discernment today and seek true wisdom from God, with hearts open to receive from him.

Lord, we confess the weakness of our flesh. We have at times confused natural wisdom for spiritual wisdom and let how we are broken define us. Show us, Lord, in the spirit, who we really are in you. Strengthen us in the here and now to be more like the person your eternal eyes already see as we spiritually gestate and await our births into eternity. Open our eyes to the truth of who you made us to be. Please vanquish any corrupt desire that is preventing us from receiving true spiritual wisdom from you. We trust in you. In Jesus name we pray, amen.

Some view the bible as a random list of dos and don’ts we’re expected to obey for no other reason than, “God says so.” Others agree, but feel the blood washes the dos and the don’s away rather than our guilt for breaking them, and view the bible today as being a warm fuzzy book full of hope and promises of salvation, healing, protection from harm and our enemies, and promises if we have enough faith, we’ll be given every desire of our heart.

Eventually, these latter “Arm Chair Christians” encounter the harsh reality of trials and the pain of reaping the fruits of sowing to the flesh. So they declare the promise in faith. To their shock, it’s not there to claim. At that point, these simple folk sometimes wisely re-read their bibles seeking where they went wrong, and God sheds light on the fact the promise hinged on their obedience. The danger they face at that moment is the temptation to go overboard and become legalists, obeying from fear rather than from trust and love. It can be addicting when living by God’s principles changed their lives for the better, maybe even saved it in the earthly. Runners face the hazard of losing sight of the grace that enables us to run. We must guard against this, or we’ll be disqualified.

Other Arm Chair Christians keep ignoring the bible’s wisdom on how to live, faithfully claiming the victory, and wondering why they don’t have it. Christians in the race try to gently point out to these folk that their sin is causing their woes and they need to repent of it to get the victory. The unwise ones accuse the runner of judging and may arrogantly compare themselves to saints who waited for decades or until eternity to receive.

Still others may well be in the race as a mere recreation, but when the race inevitably becomes difficult, they can become so disheartened, they give up altogether and become atheists or agnostics.

God’s word isn’t an authoritarian list of random do’s and don’ts that have no rhyme or reason besides “I said so.” Nor is it a list of warm fuzzy promises from a cosmic Santa Claus who doesn’t even keep a list of who’s been naughty anymore.

The bible makes promises, good promises, it is full of hope. But following Jesus is not without life’s struggles and hardships. Battling the flesh and the enemy’s attempts to derail us can make life even more difficult for Christians. If we don’t seek understanding in the bible’s pages for how God designed us to function and seek to grow in grace and wisdom, if we remain foolish and sow to the sinful flesh, we’ll reap pain, death, sorrow, broken relationships, and fractured lives.

God does all the work in us–at least that lasts. He saves us by grace, through faith, not by works. None of us can boast. We’ve all sinned and fallen short and anyone who claims otherwise is either a liar or naive.

But if we want the victory, and the victor’s crown, we need to be willing to actually allow God’s grace to transform us from sinners into saints. His promises were made to his saints, those who love and trust him and are spiritually descended from Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. If you want the promise you’re claiming, stop sitting on the sidelines, waving, “Go saints!” in one hand and “Sinner saved by grace!” in the other and get in the game and run the race.

Most of us, as we labor in life and in ministry and the workplace, and seek to do right, work hard, love hard, will grow weary. We will feel ignored, overlooked, neglected. We will wonder if anyone even notices us and cares that we are there. We will wonder if we’re really needed or wanted. And, when continuing on grows hard, we will wonder if it is all really worth the effort.

In today’s verse, the author of Hebrews reaches out through the pages of History to prophetically voice straight from the Lord’s heart: “Yes! I care. I see you. The efforts you are making to serve and love my people in my name matter to me.”

If you’re where God has called you, doing the work God has given you, keep going. Don’t quit. If we persevere and endure in the faith, he will be our reward when he calls us home.

It is interesting also to note the greater context of this verse. Chapter Six starts out encouraging us to dig deeper into the things of God than the mere fundamentals, lest we fall away. He then laments it is impossible for man to restore the faith of those who fall away after having truly known God, tasted his goodness, his grace, and felt the power of his spirit and the kingdom of God at work in their hearts and lives. His warning comparing such a one to land fit only to be burned is severe to the point of chilling and goes against, frankly, everything the Church teaches today.

Yet Hebrews goes on from this shocking pronouncement of judgment to say:

Though we speak in this way, yet in your case, beloved, we feel sure of better things—things that belong to salvation. For God is not unjust so as to overlook your work and the love that you have shown for his name in serving the saints, as you still do. And we desire each one of you to show the same earnestness to have the full assurance of hope until the end, so that you may not be sluggish, but imitators of those who through faith and patience inherit the promises.

Let us take comfort that what was is impossible for man is possible for God. We don’t see into the heart nearly as well as he does. Let’s run our own race well, assured of the hope and the grace within us that has saved us.

Lord, thank you for your finished work on the cross. Thank you for remolding and reshaping sinners such as we have been into the saints you made us to be. May we know your power within us and know your eyes are upon us, and that you will deal  justly as well as mercifully. Lead us today where you are calling us and give us hearts that hunger and thirst for your righteousness and love you and your people as you have loved us. In Jesus’ name we pray, amen.