Country Living is beautiful Picture by Wyatt Carpenter
Our blog is inspired by the Holy Spirit.
At the end of forty days Noah opened the hatch he had made in the ark,
and he sent out a raven,
to see if the waters had lessened on the earth.
It flew back and forth until the waters dried off from the earth.
Then he sent out a dove,
to see if the waters had lessened on the earth.
But the dove could find no place to alight and perch,
and it returned to him in the ark,
for there was water all over the earth.
Putting out his hand, he caught the dove
and drew it back to him inside the ark.
He waited seven days more and again sent the dove out from the ark.
In the evening the dove came back to him,
and there in its bill was a plucked-off olive leaf!
So Noah knew that the waters had lessened on the earth.
He waited still another seven days
and then released the dove once more;
and this time it did not come back.
In the six hundred and first year of Noah’s life,
in the first month, on the first day of the month,
the water began to dry up on the earth.
Noah then removed the covering of the ark
and saw that the surface of the ground was drying up.
Noah built an altar to the LORD,
and choosing from every clean animal and every clean bird,
he offered burnt offerings on the altar.
When the LORD smelled the sweet odor, he said to himself:
“Never again will I doom the earth because of man
since the desires of man’s heart are evil from the start;
nor will I ever again strike down all living beings, as I have done.
As long as the earth lasts,
seedtime and harvest,
cold and heat,
Summer and winter,
and day and night
shall not cease.”
Genesis 8:6-13, 20-22
We are retelling the story of Noah’s ark in the sixth week of extraordinary time.
I used to think this was a story and a flood didn’t happen. As I grew older and thought more about this, I now believe the story is true.
Why?
Everything God does can make one believe this or other stories couldn’t happen.
Creating the universe, earth, seasons, plants, animals, you and I, whose desires of man’s heart are evil from the start.
Adam and Eve brought this on with their sin of rape.
Rape of God.
The rape of God is another hint of the Outrageous love the Triune God has for us.
Question.
If you were to enter into a relationship where you knew in advance the desires of the heart were evil towards you from the start, wouldn’t you run away and run away as fast as possible?
Not only that,
Everyone would congratulate you for being perceptive and not committing to a destructive relationship.
But,
You see, we’re not God.
In Genesis 1: 31, God saw all that he had made, and it was very good.
In Genesis 1: 27
So God created mankind in his own image,
in the image of God he created them;
male and female he created them.
So man and all of what God created was very good because WE are created in the image of God. That image, of course, is Love, Joy, and Peace.
As we are writing this, a thought has entered my mind, Holy Spirit. Everything other than man did what they were created for. An Apple tree grows apples. A Lion culls the weak, sick, and old from the herd.
If you were to carry this out throughout all creation, it’s easy to see how every living thing has a purpose; take out one of God’s creatures, and we suffer, and the world changes. An easy example is the sudden death of the dinosaurs.
Man, however, was created to be in the image of God. Man can also create art, music, and, most importantly, life, and live a life filled with Love.
But,
We have free will, a gift from God that we should cherish because we can choose to do or not do the will of God.
The flood wiped out all living creatures except Noah, his family, and the animals on the ark, and God looked at the destruction and said never again would a flood wipe out everything.
Why
Because God remembered it was Very Good.
In writing this blog, I reread Genesis chapters 1-4. Chapter 4 has Cain killing Able.
The last line of Chapter four is. At that time, people began to call on the name of the Lord.
Genesis 4:26
Interestingly, we can’t live without calling on the name of the Lord because what They created was very good. God can’t stop trying to bring us back to Them so we can become the image of God, a light in a dark world, and enjoy a life outside of the “world” in the “Spirit World.”
Calling us back to Them was accomplished on the Cross of Jesus, and once again, Jesus’ death is not believed by the Muslims.
I just realized that everything in the Bible is either believed or not believed. Where do you stop if you start down the road of unbelief in one story or part of the Bible?
Take the time to remind yourself that even though the desires of your heart are evil from the start, God still wanted you and created you.
Celebrate a God who didn’t run away but took the time by the life of His Son to show you how to live a life in Harmony with God.
If you want to join Team Jesus, throw satan out of your life by praying, “Get behind me, satan,” or “Come Holy Spirit.” And fight your way back into the Love, Joy, and Peace of the Holy Spirit.
Sidebar:
Last week’s Sidebar was long, and my brother Roger sent an email after reviewing the whole blog that I should make this shorter. I thought about it and agreed.
As we said at the beginning of this blog, I used to think that Noah’s ark was a story. I don’t think this way anymore.
Science, yes, science, is starting to prove the idea that this is only a story is false.
Mike, our oldest son, recommended Is Genesis History? I have started watching Is Genesis History and have concluded that the scientists that say evolution without God are wrong.
There are two ways you can watch this page.
- The movie: Is Genesis History -watch the entire film on YouTube
One hour and forty-four minutes
- Short topics based on the film Is Genesis History on YouTube
Each topic lasts from three to ten minutes.
We live in fascinating times.
Christians were made fun of in the Scopes trial for believing in Creation and not Evolution, and I think the pendulum is starting to swing in the opposite direction.
A new thought:
So the Lord God cast a deep sleep on the man, and while he was asleep, he took out one of his ribs and closed up its place with flesh. The Lord God then built the rib that he had taken from the man into a woman.
Genesis 2: 21-22
Tim Gray of The Formed, https://watch.formed.org 2/9/23 said, God didn’t create a woman from dust as God did for man, and God didn’t create woman from man’s foot so man would be over her, nor from his head so that she would be over a man; no, God created woman from man’s rib, that part of his body closest to the heart so that she could be a partner, equal.
Wow!
I love it!
Happy Valentines Day!
Three people asked in the comment section of last week’s blog where I got the term rape for eating the apple by Adem & Eve.
In the book, One Great Act of Fidelity by Ronald Rolheiser, OMI, a respected theologian, used the term rape to describe the eating of the apple by Adam and Eve. When I read the word rape, I finally understood the gravity of their sin.
But it’s not just rape, but the rape of God, and this is why this sin is so serious, and this explains, to me, why Jesus had to come down and submit to the cross.
I Believe by Frederick Prince
Thank you for your comment.
So much for the short Sidebar.
Wait just a minute:
While walking this afternoon, the thought came to me, “you have stated all men/women fall short several times in past blogs. Where did you find this in the Bible?”
The answer is at the top of this blog. The desires of man’s heart are evil from the start.
The above words are not mine, but we arrive at the same conclusion.
Now we’re done!
Picture:
Fred, my Grandson, took this picture.
Country living beauty! Picture by Wyatt Carpenter
Please keep Snapping!
Remember, if you want to submit a picture, no people, please, because we have to get permission from that person to use their photograph; in the comments section at the bottom of our blog, tell me you want to submit a picture, and I will send you my email address in our reply on Thursday.
