BE LIKE NOAH

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In Christ, Mark

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The scriptures. May God bless the reading of His holy word.

This is the account of Noah and his family.

Noah was a righteous man, blameless among the people of his time, and he walked faithfully with God. Noah had three sons: Shem, Ham and Japheth.

Now the earth was corrupt in God’s sight and was full of violence. God saw how corrupt the earth had become, for all the people on earth had corrupted their ways. So God said to Noah, “I am going to put an end to all people, for the earth is filled with violence because of them. I am surely going to destroy both them and the earth.”

“So make yourself an ark of cypress wood; make rooms in it and coat it with pitch inside and out. This is how you are to build it: The ark is to be three hundred cubits long, fifty cubits wide and thirty cubits high. Make a roof for it, leaving below the roof an opening one cubit high all around. Put a door in the side of the ark and make lower, middle and upper decks. I am going to bring floodwaters on the earth to destroy all life under the heavens, every creature that has the breath of life in it. Everything on earth will perish.”

“But I will establish my covenant with you, and you will enter the ark—you and your sons and your wife and your sons’ wives with you. You are to bring into the ark two of all living creatures, male and female, to keep them alive with you. Two of every kind of bird, of every kind of animal and of every kind of creature that moves along the ground will come to you to be kept alive. You are to take every kind of food that is to be eaten and store it away as food for you and for them.”

Noah did everything just as God commanded him.

Genesis 6:9-22

This ends this reading from God's holy word. Thanks be to God.

After the account of Adam and Eve being blessed by God with their son Seth, we find a genealogical bridge constructed in Genesis, chapter 5 as the scriptures fast forward to a man named Noah.

In verse 8 of chapter 6, the scriptures tell us that Noah had found “favor in the eyes of the Lord” and as we look at the beginning of today’s passage, we learn why. For we read that Noah was a “righteous man, blameless among the people of his time, and he walked faithfully with God”. Because of this, the very last verse in this chapter states that “Noah did everything just as God commanded him”.

I think the message from God’s Word here is one we should embrace as believers. For in presenting Noah as a great man of faith, dedicated to the God who made him, our Lord is doing so with the hope that we might shape our own lives to resemble His servant.

Or in other words, we should strive to be like Noah.

Like him, we should strive daily to walk closely with God and attempt to live as blameless and righteously as possible among our fellow man.

Like him, we should always be prepared to go and do whatever God commands, even if it means constructing a gargantuan ark and loading it up with living creatures to survive a great flood. When we look at this, we find that Noah got to work doing as God asked without questioning. This is because he indeed did all that God demanded.

As we look at a description of Noah’s spiritual character and attitude, there are some important takeaways as we look to walk more and more in God’s will and way:

1. We need to live closer and closer with God every day.

Our Lord is with us and for us. We can never get too close to Him and the more we’re in His presence, the more we’ll see Him empower us to be the person He wants us to be. Then, the more empowered we are in Him, the more confident we become through Him, even to the point where we might undertake an incredibly, challenging task. We might not be asked to build an ark but there are plenty of other important tasks He could command us to do in His name.

And this leads me to the second takeaway.

2. Never underestimate what God might ask you to do at any one given time.

I’m sure Noah didn’t wake up on the day of this event in the scriptures and say to himself, "I think I’ll build a great ark today", but that’s what ended up happening, right?

I think we all have a tendency to carefully plan out our days and weeks. With this, how would any of us handle God stepping into our day and commanding us to do something as momentous as what He asked Noah to do? Would we feel put off by the interruption in what we want to do? Or would we, like Noah, stop what he had planned to do what God commanded.

I think the key here is to be ready for God to do anything at anytime and use us in any way He sees fit to accomplish His purposes.

Noah was up to the task and we need to be as well.

3. When God commands you to do something, just do it.

Our scripture doesn’t say that Noah questioned whether he was the right man for the task God had given him. It doesn’t say that he was afraid he would fail to accomplish what he was told to do. Nor does it say that he felt overwhelmed by the task ahead. And it definitely doesn’t say that he came up with some excuse as to why he couldn’t do it.

No, Noah simply trusted God would help him do what he was asked to do and therefore "did everything just as God commanded”. Our Lord expects us all to follow suit.

In closing, I don’t know about you but I gain more and more respect every time I study the Noah story. For after God had dealt with the sinfulness of Adam and Cain, I can’t help but think Noah was a nice breath of fresh air for God so it’s not hard to understand why He decided to bless His faithful servant and his family in the special way that He did.

Let’s try and be like Noah, faithful to God in every way, so that we and our families might also get to experience His favor and the blessings that come from obedient service to Him.

Amen.

In Christ,

Mark

PS: Feel free to leave a comment and please share this with anyone you feel might be blessed by it. Send any prayer requests to TheChristianWalkPrayers@gmail.com.