Category Archives: Genesis

genesis 9: multiply

“And God blessed Noah and his sons and said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth.”

Remember when He said the same thing to Adam and Eve?

“And God blessed them. And God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth…”

And then when Jesus said it to His disciples?

“Therefore go and make disciples of all nations…”

Bringing forth many from few. Reproducing His Kingdom through His people is the way of God.

Both darkness and light are increasing in our world today. The part we don’t always pay attention to is which one are we multiplying?

“…for at one time you were darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Walk as children of light…”

The instruction to walk as children of light indicates that it may not be a natural response to our identity in Christ. Even though we are now light, we can still walk as though we are in darkness.

We can still gossip with our co-workers, respond to circumstances with fear and anxiety, react to our children in anger, sulk when we’re overlooked, be obnoxiously prideful, and continually express discontentment with our lives, among other things.

And people are watching. Our kids and grandkids are imitating us. Co-workers, neighbors, family members, employees, younger Christians, and unbelievers could all possibly be looking at us to see what it looks like to follow Jesus.

Questions:

  • When I survey the way I am living my life, the attitudes I display, the values I live by – do I want it reproduced in others?
  • Who is watching my life? Who is becoming the kind of Christian they see in me?
  • How can I be more intentional in multiplying the Kingdom of God around me?

Go, make disciples. Walk as children of Light.

Genesis 9:1; Genesis 1:28; Matthew 28:19; Ephesians 5:8

genesis 8: altars

Again, God is specific with timing. The ark came to rest on the 17th day of the 7th month. In the 601st year (of Noah’s life), 2nd month, 27th day of the month, the earth was finally dry again. Noah and his family had been in the ark for about a year. I can only imagine the smell.

God knows the timing of every single thing in your life. If you are wondering when, or how long, then I invite you to rest. Stop wrestling with the timing of it. Whatever it is, it will not be one minute late, or go on one minute too long.

Noah and his family didn’t know how long they would be in there. I assume they had friends and neighbors who perished in the flood. Their home and all that was known to them was gone, and they had no idea what life would look like outside of the Ark. Maybe they were grieving. Maybe they were scared. Whatever they were dealing with, it was no vacation.

Sometimes being rescued is hard. Life as we know it changes and it can be painful, and it always comes with a loss. In fact, we all have, or have heard, testimonies of life going downhill fast once we surrendered our lives to Jesus. If you are in the hard part of the rescue, stay put. Dry ground is coming.

“Then Noah built an altar to the Lord.”

Altars. Places of sacrifice. Worship. Devotion. Repentance. Thanksgiving. They represent our lives before God. The sacrifice on Noah’s altar was a costly one, given that there were only so many animals left on the earth. And that thought quickly became this one –

There are things that come with us in our rescue so that they can become our sacrifice on dry ground.

So, here come the questions, more for me than for you, but I think we could all stand to answer them: What came with you when Jesus declared you saved? Have you built an altar for your pride yet (independence, selfishness, anger, etc.)?

Can you look back at the difficult seasons and find the altars you built to worship God?

Is your life on an altar right now?


genesis 7: faith

It was in Noah’s 600th year, in the 2nd month, on the 17th day. God knows precisely when He began the flooding of the earth in order to eradicate the wickedness that permeated it. It was the exact same day that He saved the one speck of righteousness that existed on the earth – Noah. Interestingly, it never states that Noah’s sons, wife, or daughters-in-law were righteous. It only tells us that Noah found favor, Noah walked with God, Noah was righteous. Yet his entire family was saved from the flood. Reminds me of this:

“They replied, “Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved–you and your household.” – Acts 16:31

{Maybe today you needed to hear that God likes to save whole families. Maybe you needed to hear that God’s timing is precise. Maybe you needed encouragement to continue to pray, continue to believe God for your family.}

But that’s not all that caught my eye in this chapter.

Noah did all that God commanded. All. Not most. Not some. All. But these were not just obedient actions. Listen to Hebrews 11:7:

“By faith Noah, being divinely warned of things not yet seen, moved with godly fear, prepared an ark for the saving of his household, by which he condemned the world and became heir of the righteousness which is according to faith.“

Noah’s obedience came through faith. He believed God would do what He said He would do. He most likely did not understand exactly what that would look like, but He believed it would happen. He trusted God to keep His Word.

People with a religious spirit will often follow the rules out of trust in the rules, not the rule giver. Rules provide order and some measure of control and even superiority to the one who religiously follows them, but the people who follow the rules apart from faith are not the ones who are commended in scripture.

Rules are necessary, and obedience is good. But God will always want to take us below the surface of our obedience so we can discover why we are obeying, and where faith comes into it. For instance, the story of the rich young ruler in Matthew 19:

“And behold, a man came up to him, saying, “Teacher, what good deed must I do to have eternal life?” And he said to him, “Why do you ask me about what is good? There is only one who is good. If you would enter life, keep the commandments.” He said to him, “Which ones?” And Jesus said, “You shall not murder, You shall not commit adultery, You shall not steal, You shall not bear false witness, Honor your father and mother, and, You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” The young man said to him, “All these I have kept. What do I still lack?” Jesus said to him, “If you would be perfect, go, sell what you possess and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me.” When the young man heard this he went away sorrowful, for he had great possessions.”

The man kept the commands until his obedience required Him to trust God by giving away what he actually trusted. His money. His obedience to the commandments came from his own ability to follow rules. But as in all things, God is looking for faith. From the beginning to the end, it will always be about faith. We enter salvation through faith, not obedience to rules. We can obey every rule written in the scriptures, every commandment given by God – (which we can’t, but for argument’s sake, let’s say we could) but if we do not obey the gospel, we will still be lost, and the gospel is obeyed solely by faith.

By faith, we all have to give up what we’ve been trusting in, and trust God alone.

“And without faith it is impossible to please God…” – Hebrews 11:6

No matter how many rules we follow.

Genesis 6—God Is In the Details

I came home one day and my husband had bought a huge painting and hung it in our living room. It was a 5-foot by 4-foot painting, and it took me about twenty minutes to notice it. My husband can tell you what kind of car each of our neighbors drives, whether or not they wear glasses, and how often they cut their grass. I couldn’t tell you any of that. Unless it involves words on paper, I don’t notice details. Even really big ones, apparently.

Perhaps that’s why the fact that God is so detailed in this chapter stood out to me. The measurements of the ark. The materials for the ark. Where the door will be, how many levels the ark would have. How many animals would be coming into the ark. God really didn’t leave a whole lot for Noah to figure out.

I love that God doesn’t paint with a broad brush. Did you know that there are over 100 prophecies about Jesus in the Old Testament, many of them giving details of His death on the cross? And the building of the Temple – full of details.

My point is this: God sees details. He’s not missing one small thing that is happening in your life or in your heart. Nothing will be overlooked by Him.

What are the details of your life that you assume go unseen?

Fingernails bitten down to the quick because that’s how you respond to stress?

The sadness that washes over you just for a moment when you’re reminded of something, or someone?

The little things that make you who you are that others don’t notice, or particularly care about, like the way you get teary-eyed when you watch the sunrise?

The bits and pieces of shame, embarrassment, and insecurity that you tuck away, out of sight, and the way you laugh to cover up your fear. The longings. The dreams you don’t dare dream out loud. The wishes and the regret?

They are not unnoticed. Details matter to God, including yours.

Genesis 5—The Feeling of Deception

Chapters full of genealogies are hard to get excited about, aren’t they? Don’t worry, I’m not going to go beyond the first three verses.

These are the family records of the descendants of Adam. On the day that God created man, He made him in the likeness of God;  He created them male and female. When they were created, He blessed them and called them man.

Two genders. Two very distinct, different genders. So how do we bring this into our lives with an application, if we already believe it?

By recognizing that the deception that is running rabid through our culture is not that there are no genders or many genders, or that we can be any gender we “identify” as on any given day. Those belief systems are just the outcome of the deception. The great lie behind these beliefs, in my opinion, is this:

What I feel is what is true.

Instead of realizing that our feelings are very often great liars, we are making them our god.

As a young girl of 10 or 11, I felt unloved, so I accused my parents of not loving me (as most adolescents do at some point). When I got older I realized that what I felt was not even close to being true. Part of growing up is learning that feelings come and feelings go, so we don’t make decisions based on how we’re feeling. We wait. We look for the truth, consider the facts.

“I feel”. It’s actually a rather ingenious tactic of the enemy. Humans are created with emotions. We feel things. All he had to do was convince us to judge truth by what we feel, or, by what we don’t feel.

Questions: What feelings have you determined to be truth?

Examples: I feel like a failure. I feel ugly. I feel like no one likes me. I feel stupid. I feel like I am made wrong. I feel unseen/unheard/unwanted. I feel unloved/unloveable.

Or how about these:

I don’t feel like I should have to forgive them. I don’t feel like I should have to give my hard-earned money away. I don’t feel like they deserve my help.

It’s worth thinking about. I can feel it.

Genesis 4—Stop the Progression

Progression. That’s what most caught my eye from this chapter.

Cain’s pride got hurt. That progressed to jealousy. Then anger, and finally, murder.

In my younger years I dealt with anger that progressed to rage, and then went on to hatred. During the healing process of all that anger, I realized that I hadn’t just woke up one day full of anger. It developed over years of being in a broken marriage, of being offended, having my feelings hurt and my pride wounded.

I didn’t know how to process my hurt feelings with God, how to reject lies and embrace truth, or how to respond in the Spirit to someone who was hurting my soul.

I didn’t know that sin was crouching at my door, and I didn’t know that I could master it. My feelings were hurt and that made me mad. That’s all I knew.

But what if I had known? What if Cain had known that if he didn’t deal with his pride it was going to take him down? What if I had understood that when my feelings got hurt, it was my pride that was stinging more than anything else, and what if I had chosen humility in response?

What if Cain had listened to God’s rebuke and what if I had listened when God said not to let the sun go down on my anger? What if I hadn’t let 20 years of suns go down with me still ticked off at something or someone?

What if I had chosen love over striking back, or forgiveness instead of punishment? What if I had seen the progression before the anger became rage and the rage became hatred?

The air is sweet on a high horse, looking down at Cain and his murderous self. It gets a little bitter when you’re looking at him eye to eye.

And yet, I am blessed. Because God stepped into the pit I was in and pulled me out. Taught me how to deal with offense, how to love when I’m hurt, how to keep one eye on my pride at all times, and for the love of pete, how to repent. He healed my wounds and restored a marriage that two people had killed in a most brutal fashion. He stopped a progression that was just too strong for both of us.

Anger to murder. Lust to adultery. Gossip to slander. Disobedience to rebellion. Discontent to ungrateful. Fornication to abortion. Progression.

Think about it:
  • How have you seen the progression of sin in your life?
  • How am you seeing the progression of sin in the culture around you?
  • What are you willing to do to stop the progression of sin in your life, and in your culture?

Genesis 3—Say No Before You See It

“So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate, and she also gave some to her husband who was with her, and he ate.” (Genesis 3:6)

First, we have no indication of how much time elapsed from when they were placed in the garden and instructed not to eat from the one tree, and when the snake made his move. Could have been days, could have been years, but my guess is that Eve had seen that tree more than a few times before satan came to her. But now, it looked different to her. Now it looked like something she should have. Suddenly, that tree was worth the risk of disobedience. And all the enemy had to do was make her doubt God.

  • Did God really say?
  • But that’s not really true. You won’t really die.
  • He knows that if you do this, you’ll be like Him. That’s why He told you not to do it.

The scriptures give us a front-row seat in that garden to witness the very moment Eve fell for the lie: “So when the woman saw that the tree was good…” When what had once been wrong suddenly looked different to her, the trap was sprung. We have to say no when we hear the lie. We can’t wait until we see something in a different light, because there’s a good chance it will be too late by then. Our ‘no’ must come the moment we are tempted to doubt God.

  • BEFORE food looks like comfort;
  • BEFORE alcohol looks like a painkiller;
  • BEFORE sex looks like the love we crave;
  • BEFORE money looks like the answer to all our problems;
  • BEFORE submission looks weak;
  • BEFORE people look like saviors;
  • BEFORE the scriptures look optional.

Before any of that, the enemy will come to us with a lie, and we’ll have the same choice Adam and Eve had. Believe God and obey – or not. But we cannot be long in the choosing, or that lie will start to look like truth.

Pondering lies will never serve us, it will only serve the liar.

Think about it…

What are the lies you’ve believed, and how have they affected your life? What are you currently hearing that might be a lie? How will your respond?