Author: words and signs

9 “And Abram had become extremely wealthy in livestock and silver and gold.”

 Genesis 13:2

 Here in this scripture we have the man who was known as the friend of God presented to us as a man of great wealth. Such is the blessing of the Lord on all those who follow Him, are obedient and put their full trust in Him. Those who follow the Lord are fully provided for.

“The young lions do lack, and suffer hunger, but those who seek the Lord shall not lack any good thing.”

 Psalm 34:10

 God promises full provision for us and will supply all our needs and more, out of His tender love and care for us. How much we have and enjoy at the hand of our loving God. Do we count our blessings and feed our faith through the knowledge of the Lord? Abraham was able to support the life of all that came with him out of the godless culture of Ur. So also we escape the godlessness of this life and are found rich in God.

 God does not set one human above another, but calls out to each person to repent and believe. This is the call for each of us that we will find ourselves in the kingdom of Christ and heirs of God with Him. Such is our great inheritance and we should live in the light of that. Abraham did and was known as the “friend of God.” He honoured God above all and gave a tenth of his wealth to the Priest Melchizedek and we also give of our riches to the Lord. Let us live in great confidence that the Lord will always provide and make us rich in Him.

 

8 “let’s make a name for ourselves…”

 Genesis 11:4

 The sons and daughters of humankind are always seeking acclaim and to make a name for themselves. The Lord is over all but somehow we think we can better ourselves in the schemes of this fallen world. The people on the earth had common language and sought to make a name that they could be proud of and somehow to reach to God. Mankind is always in this frame and seeks to make its own way to God through its works and ways. We are full of pride and self-seeking and think that we can make our own way to heaven. This was the thinking on the earth at this time. God is not honoured by us and so He confused the language so that the peoples will seek Him and not each other.

 We are filled with conceit in our natural selves and do not consider the requirements of a holy God. We mistakenly think we can reach out to Him on our terms and not according to His grace. We are not gracious and so seek earthly ways to reach heaven, which is impossible. Only faith pleases the Lord and only humility is acceptable to Him who owns it all.

“Without faith it is impossible to be well pleasing to him, for he who comes to God must believe that he exists, and that he is a rewarder of those who seek him.”

 Hebrews 11:6

 Without faith it is impossible to please God and we cannot find Him on our own terms. We come to Him in repentance and faith and look to His power to save us and not our own devices.

 

7 “Then God remembered Noah”

 Genesis 8:1

 What a treasure we possess that our mighty God should think on His people and regard every one of them. The thoughts of God towards His people are constant and ever. There is not a moment that He is not thinking of our wellbeing and planning our lives for His glory and our good. The godly servant of the Lord, Noah, was not forgotten but God delivered him and his household from the flood. God will deliver us also if we will hide our life in Christ and follow in the way of holiness.

 God does not forget His people even though we are forgotten and sidelined, yet His mercy to us is ever sure and He will give us ways to serve Him and witness for Him. Noah was hidden in the ark and so we also are hidden in the ark of Christ. He is our great saviour and can shelter us from the storms of life and make us fruitful for His glory.

 Do you desire that God should remember you? Think of the thief on the cross who asked Jesus on the cross beside him to remember him.

 

“He said to Jesus, “Lord, remember me when you come into your Kingdom.” Jesus said to him, “Assuredly I tell you, today you will be with me in Paradise.”

Luke 23:42-43

 Surely God will look upon all who call on Him in truth. The way is open for you to come today.

6 “on that day all the fountains of the great deep burst open, and the sky’s windows opened.”

 Genesis 7:11

 What an incredible day that was which Noah and his family watched unfold. God’s judgement on sinful humankind was poured out. God did not spare any of them but plunged them into eternity. Only eight people were saved from that deluge and every living thing was destroyed- such is the wrath of God. God will not tolerate sin but will certainly judge it all. We need the refuge of Christ to protect us and the Ark of His lovingkindness to rescue us for the wrath to come.

 We turn our eyes to the man on the cross who suffered so greatly for the sake of His people. He bore their punishment in His own body on the tree. All the waves and billows of God’s righteous judgement passed on Him and He bore the guilt and shame so that we might not do so.

“Deep calls to deep at the noise of your waterfalls. All your waves and your billows have swept over me.”

 Psalm 42:7

 Such is the magnificence of the love of God. We are safe in the eternal arms of our Saviour as those eight people were safe in God’s provision of the Ark.

 Let us daily hide our life in Christ that we will walk worthily and be found safe in Him.

 

5 “The Lord was sorry that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him in his heart.”

 Genesis 6:6

 Oh how hurt is our loving God when we turn away from Him and indulge ourselves in sin. How neglected He is that we don’t draw near to Him every day and pray to Him at every opportunity.

“Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners. Purify your hearts, you double-minded.”

 James 4:8

 He has given up all for us and yet we are so slow and reticent to be in His quiet presence. We love the clamour and the things that feed our emotions and fail to see the beauty of the Lord. The Lord was grieved at the sin of humankind, and His heart was broken for us. Why should He love us? This we will never understand but we rejoice to know that it is true.

 Let us examine our own lives and see if there are things in our behaviour which should not be there. Sins that infest us that we have gotten so used to that we don’t see them anymore. Ask God to show you His holiness as you read the Scripture and show you how to purify your heart before Him. We have all sinned so this is relevant to all of us. Let us give our loving God all our heart and walk in step with Him as we obey and trust in Him.

 Let us not grieve the heart of our Beloved, but seek His well done.  He daily waits for us to come to Him afresh and make our daily walk to be overshadowed with His presence. May we be fully satisfied with Him.

4 “Enoch walked with God, and he was not found, for God took him.”

 Genesis 5:24

 Such was the simplicity and faithful walk of the believer Enoch that he did not die but was translated straight to heaven by God. He did not have to experience the cold hand of death but was glorified straight in his body to the presence of God. We wonder at the kind of life he must have led to be blessed in such an unusual way. We can think of many worthy believers that we have read about and yet they went down into the experience of death as we all must do, except this faithful saint in early Bible times who walked with God.

 Enoch lived his whole life and Christian walk in the felt presence of Christ for he expected a Saviour promised from the beginning of the history of time. He never wavered in his obedience to the holy Word and knew the way of God and walked daily in it. He prayed in the presence of God at all times and never thought or went anywhere that would cause him to deviate from that holy place.

His whole day was spent in prayer even as he involved himself in activities, yet God was always there with him. His conscious life enabled him to always be God-centered and ever present in the Word of God. His life was conscious thought of God and to be obedient every moment to the truth he knew.

 What do we spend our days thinking about and involving ourselves in? Do we have desire after the presence of God in our life, motivating us to obedience and love? Such is the daily walk of the true-hearted believer who loves the Lord with all their body, soul and spirit and all their strength is involved in keeping close to their loving God.

3 “In the day that God created man, he made him in God’s likeness.”

 Genesis 5:1

 This verse demonstrates to us the precious nature that belongs to women and men. We are not mere lumps of flesh or a conglomeration of cells, but creatures created by God to be His friends. This elevates our psyche beyond and above the animals for we are not like them.

 We may be superficially like animals in some respects and the powers that be in the scientific community have tried to downplay the human and raise up the animal to try and make them equal and alike, but we are not. Human beings have a spiritual facility that animals do not have for we have living souls that allow us to relate to the eternal God and we can know Him and commune with Him.

 Too many people do not value this facility and therefore do not know God nor do they draw close to Him. This underplays our spiritual life and indeed if we do not know God we have no spiritual life. Because in our natural life we do not perceive God or our need of Him, we think there is nothing else outside our own experience. It is only when God awakens our mind and heart that we can see our need of Him and purposefully seek him out. We find Him when we come to the end of ourselves and realise our deep need of moral forgiveness and the new life in Christ.

 We were made for God and therefore made in His image and have His eternal mark in our psyche. We have the propensity for eternity and we find life when we bow our knees to the Father God and repent and believe.

 

2 “The Lord said to Cain, “Where is Abel, your brother?” He said, “I don’t know. Am I my brother’s keeper?”

 Genesis 4:9

 The two brother Cain and Abel had made sacrifices to the Lord their God and God had accepted Abel’s sacrifice, but Cain’s sacrifice was not holy. Cain was aggrieved about the rejection and instead of repenting he murdered his brother in a fit of rage. God asks him the searching question, and he replies with a terse and abrupt answer.

 This is a very searching response for it shows the heart of Cain which was not in tune with God and was not repentant. He was full of pride and would not accept the judgment of the Lord and change his ways. He was stubborn and selfish and would not accept the grace of God but sought to please God with his own ideas and good works.

 God is very clear in His word, what He expects from us. Without faith it is impossible to please God and there is no forgiveness of sin without blood sacrifice, as Abel had offered. This is why Jesus had to come to pay the dreadful debt of sin that we could never pay. We must accept it in faith and repentance and find peace with God.

 Cain had not been a keeper of his brother but had poured out his own anger on the life of his brother. We must be careful we do not tread the same pathway and have no regard for those who are following God. We are to listen to rebuke and bend our knees to correction and not rise up against the Lord and sin before Him.

 

1 “He shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise His heel.”

 Genesis 3:15

 This is the first of the amazing promises of God to provide a Saviour for the sin of the people of planet earth. He makes the promise to the enemy, Satan, that his head and life will be destroyed by the coming man, born to be our Saviour – the Messiah.

God makes the promise to humankind that they will not always be under the enemy but will be set free from the tyranny of Satan and sin.

 Through the work of the coming Saviour we are set free to have the victory over our sinful, selves and the sin that infests our nature.  God was going to send the person of His only beloved and begotten Son to be the sin-bearer and sovereign over the lives of His chosen people.

 God was not caught unawares by the fall of Adam and Eve, but had agreed a rescue plan with the other members of the Godhead, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, that they would carry out a plan of redemption for the lost soul of humankind. There was no plan quite like this one and no covenant was its equal. God made the covenant with Himself and therefore it was binding and could never fail. This is the confidence that we can have with our God that he will bring us safely to heaven through the shed blood of the Redeemer. Satan is conquered and His head is destroyed on the cross, so that sinful people could find forgiveness and a new life in Christ.