Category Archives: Bible Study

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.

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.

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?

“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?

“Now out of the ground the Lord God had formed every beast of the field and every bird of the heavens and brought them to the man to see what he would call them. And whatever the man called every living creature, that was its name.”

Fact: God could have named the animals He had made, and then said to Adam, “That’s a jackrabbit, and that one over there is a giraffe, and that one is a…” But He didn’t. He included Adam in the work of creation by having him name the animals. This is the first time, but not the last by any means, that God partners with us in the work of His Kingdom. We’ll see it all the way through the bible, including here:

“Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe everything I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.” – Matthew 28:19-20

But it goes beyond sharing the gospel. Partnering with the Holy Spirit in us, we move mountains, heal the sick, speak truth, care for the broken, and we witness and participate in the healing and restoration of our own lives. God could easily do all of it without us, but He doesn’t. He includes us, and whenever we choose to say “yes” to God, we are choosing to join Him in His work on the earth.

Just as in calling for light and telling oceans where to stop, there are some things in which God chooses to go solo. He invites us to rest, to wait, to be still and to know that He is God. But then He also invites to go, to speak, to pray, to believe, to touch. To be included. To be with Him in the work.

I like questions. They tend to clear my field of vision. So here are the questions that I ask so that I can see how and when God wants to include me.

• Is there someone around me who needs to hear the gospel through my story?
• Is there someone I need to forgive?
• Do I need to repent of something?
• Has He put me in front of a person or a situation that needs my money, my time, or any other resource that I have?
• Has He put an unlovable person in my life for me to love with the love of Christ?
• Do I sense the urgency to pray for someone or a situation?
• Is He sending me to another nation, or to a neighbor?

We have to resist the urge to believe that because we aren’t Billy Graham that God can’t use us. First of all, I don’t like the word “used”. God doesn’t need tools, He chooses to include and entrust people.

There is work to do, a Kingdom to advance. There are hearts to rescue, and healing to be done. There are souls to save, and lives to change and hard people to love and forgive.

We are not left out. He has included us in all of it.

“In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.”

And I remembered these words:

“For He chose us in Him BEFORE THE CREATION OF THE WORLD to be holy and blameless in his sight.”– Ephesians 1:4

“For you know that it was not with perishable things such as silver or gold that you were redeemed from the empty way of life handed down to you from your ancestors, but with the precious blood of Christ, a lamb without blemish or defect. He was chosen BEFORE THE CREATION OF THE WORLD, but was revealed in these last times for your sake”. – 1Peter 1:19-20

“Then the King will say to those on His right hand, “Come, you blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you FROM THE FOUNDATION OF THE WORLD”. – Matthew 25:34

Before “in the beginning”, Jesus was chosen to be the perfect sacrifice, we were chosen to be made blameless by His blood, and our inheritance was prepared. Much went on before “in the beginning”! God was not deciding what to do as He did it, there was a great plan in motion long before Genesis 1:1. 

It is clear from Genesis 1 through Revelation 22 that God is in control of our world. Nothing surprises Him, nothing catches Him off guard. He knows the end from the beginning and every moment in between is His to own, and I believe it is one of the hardest things for us to handle. Most of us are either fighting to get control or we’re overwhelmed because we do not have control. Free-falling is not our comfort zone.

We come to Jesus with a death grip on our lives, and when He begins to pry our fingers back the pain can feel unbearable, so we tighten our grip. We are scrappy, I’ll give us that, but we’ve met our match with God. He will always out scrap us, because He is actually in control, while we live in the illusion of being in control. Sooner or later into everyone’s illusion must come the reality that we are not sovereign, even over our own lives.

My questions to myself, and to you if you are interested, are:

How have I been living as though God is not in control? Where has fear convinced me to tighten my grip? In fact, what is it that I am fearing that is causing the need to get some kind of control? Where is it hard for me to trust God’s sovereignty? What are the areas where I absolutely wish I had sovereignty? These questions take me into the places in my heart where I keep the door closed and remain blissfully unaware of the mess behind it. But when we determine to go deep diving into the Word of God, we find ourselves facing things we’ve ignored.

As thankful as I am that God is sovereign, I know that my flesh still has fancy ideas of being in charge, of deciding what’s best for me and how to get there, and I have to deal with that mess. But I am learning to rest in the free-fall, trusting that the One who is in control is good, always.