DAY 3 - HOW FAR WILL GOD, WILL YOU...GO?

Genesis 5, 6, 7 & 8

No New Testament today: The first two days I modified slightly the reading plan from the internet link. I felt modifying the plan allowed me to set side-by-side the Old and New Testaments. Today and tomorrow we will read the Old Testament and then on day 5 I will be back on track. If you are using the internet plan, then my blog from Days 1 & 2 contain comments about those New Testament readings.

How far will God go, to what lengths will He extend himself for His Creation? How far will we go, humanity to follow this God? What cost will we bear?

These four chapters primarily provide us the story of Noah’s Ark and the Flood. God is beginning again. Beginning in chapter 6 we read of humanities abandonment of God, and as we end chapter 8 we read of God’s promise to humanity: Before we jump to the story, just a quick word on the lists of people.

Genesis 5: Another genealogy list. The Bible has many of them; why? In part to emphasize this is a real story about real people. These people have all the same traits you and I possess as humans and…these people all descend from God’s first creation. Here again the narrative is not meant to start a fight with the evolutionists. Rather it is to make a point: you and I, all of humanity, are created by and in the image of God. I cannot overstate the importance of this point. The idea that human beings, each and every one, have value is a Judeo-Christian idea. Other cultures from around the world treat humans as property, and many cultures treat our brothers and sisters as having no value. The Bible therefore goes to great lengths to show that we are all connected back to the Garden.

Genesis 6: And not just the Garden, but the Fall. Genesis 6 points out a reality that you and I see every day: apart from God the world gets evil very quickly. We give in to our selfish desires and we end up putting ourselves at the center. When we do that as individuals we hurt one another. When we do that as towns, cities, nations and cultures, the damage is much more severe. Does it pain you to read in verse 6, “The Lord was sorry that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved his heart.” It pains me. It also shows us an attribute of God; He has feelings and not just random feelings, but feeling about us.

Genesis 6 also reveals God’s faithfulness. You might be surprised at that statement because God is about to destroy the world. There is one man who is not corrupt and who seeks to please God and God therefore spares him. Only one man out of how many; thousands, or tens of thousands, or more; and God shows his justness by not only sparing him, but by starting over through him.

As much as the verse in 6:6 bothered me there is another verse, 6:22 that I think is the point of today for me. Verse 6:22, “Noah…did all that God commanded him.” I am struck by how Noah did everything. We will read tomorrow about how Noah is not perfect, but for now would you like God to say that about you? Doing everything meant building the Ark. The 2007 film Evan Almighty is a religious comedy based on this passage of Scripture and it gives you a visual image of how big the Ark is. A cubit is estimate at approximately 18 inches which puts the Ark at 450 feet long, 75 feet wide and 45 feet high – enough to get your neighbors attention.

In the middle of this epic story sits a man, going to great lengths, doing what seems to be ridiculous because he is being obedient to God. Above this epic story is God, going to great lengths, being faithful, to encourage humanity to stay connected to Him. These two themes: our obedience and God’s faithfulness we play out over and over again in the next 362 days, and I will have more to say about each, but for today the question I will be pondering is, “How far will I go to be obedient to God?” I already know how far He has gone for me.