Saturday, August 23rd, 2008

Hey Everybody! I know weekends are hard, but stay faithful this weekend and be in church tomorrow morning as we continue the second week of our series on personal standards!! This is some important stuff! Be There!

A Few Thoughts From Yesterday:
McCue: Wow! Preach it! Brilliant ideas about the passage in relation to global warming! GREAT JOB!
Alex: Nope, an elephant is not one of the clean animials... you're right! That wouldl be incredibly hard to do!!
Jessica B: I hope you have fun babysitting! So does your mom pay you to watch Alex or not? :)
Jesh Sandefur: Great Job on the devos man! Way to be transparent! I wish everyone was that transparent!
BETHANY F: CONGRATULATIONS!!!! I am so happy for you! Great Job!
Michael: How did the doves find each other? Well, I don't know, but doves are still around today, so I do know this... they DID find each other. :)
Rachel: Those were some incredible devotions! Your illustration was incredible!
Kacey: Great Job Girl! You are not the only one that tries to justify what our flesh really wants to do (like watching some TV show) but I am so Glad that God spoke to you about it. Thanks for being so transparent!!


Genesis 9

1 So God blessed Noah and his sons, and said to them: “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth.
2 And the fear of you and the dread of you shall be on every beast of the earth, on every bird of the air, on all that move on the earth, and on all the fish of the sea. They are given into your hand.
3 Every moving thing that lives shall be food for you. I have given you all things, even as the green herbs.
4 But you shall not eat flesh with its life, that is, its blood.
5 Surely for your lifeblood I will demand a reckoning; from the hand of every beast I will require it, and from the hand of man. From the hand of every man’s brother I will require the life of man.
6 “ Whoever sheds man’s blood, By man his blood shall be shed; For in the image of God He made man.
7 And as for you, be fruitful and multiply; Bring forth abundantly in the earth And multiply in it.”
8 Then God spoke to Noah and to his sons with him, saying:
9 “And as for Me, behold, I establish My covenant with you and with your descendants after you,
10 and with every living creature that is with you: the birds, the cattle, and every beast of the earth with you, of all that go out of the ark, every beast of the earth.
11 Thus I establish My covenant with you: Never again shall all flesh be cut off by the waters of the flood; never again shall there be a flood to destroy the earth.”
12 And God said: “This is the sign of the covenant which I make between Me and you, and every living creature that is with you, for perpetual generations:
13 I set My rainbow in the cloud, and it shall be for the sign of the covenant between Me and the earth.
14 It shall be, when I bring a cloud over the earth, that the rainbow shall be seen in the cloud;
15 and I will remember My covenant which is between Me and you and every living creature of all flesh; the waters shall never again become a flood to destroy all flesh.
16 The rainbow shall be in the cloud, and I will look on it to remember the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature of all flesh that is on the earth.”
17 And God said to Noah, “This is the sign of the covenant which I have established between Me and all flesh that is on the earth.”

Noah and His Sons
18 Now the sons of Noah who went out of the ark were Shem, Ham, and Japheth. And Ham was the father of Canaan.
19 These three were the sons of Noah, and from these the whole earth was populated.
20 And Noah began to be a farmer, and he planted a vineyard.
21 Then he drank of the wine and was drunk, and became uncovered in his tent.
22 And Ham, the father of Canaan, saw the nakedness of his father, and told his two brothers outside.
23 But Shem and Japheth took a garment, laid it on both their shoulders, and went backward and covered the nakedness of their father. Their faces were turned away, and they did not see their father’s nakedness.
24 So Noah awoke from his wine, and knew what his younger son had done to him.
25 Then he said: “ Cursed be Canaan; A servant of servants He shall be to his brethren.”
26 And he said: “ Blessed be the LORD, The God of Shem, And may Canaan be his servant.
27 May God enlarge Japheth, And may he dwell in the tents of Shem; And may Canaan be his servant.”
28 And Noah lived after the flood three hundred and fifty years.
29 So all the days of Noah were nine hundred and fifty years; and he died.

Wow! There is a lot here in this passage! I am going to break it down into three seperate parts and talk about each one to make this a little easier.

First Part: God Blesses Noah and His Family
Second Part: God makes and explains the covenant of the Rainbow!!
Third Part: A Weird story about Noah and his sons

First: I think it is so wonderful to see in this passage how, GOD BLESSES NOAH and HIS FAMILY! Do you realize that God will reward you for being faithful, but He will also reward your entire family for YOUR faithfulness. I think that is so great! Noah must have been a happy man! He obeyed God and He was blessed for it! If we obey God we too will be blessed!

Second: This is all about the creation of the RAINBOW. God makes it very clear in this passage that whenever you see a rain cloud, DO NOT FEAR... God will not destroy the earth with a flood again. God explains that the rainbow exists to remind us of that promise. Here is why I think it is so cool.

God knows that there are going to be sometimes (like this week) in our life where it seems like it will not stop raining, but God wants us to KNOW that the earth will not be destroyed by a flood. I think the coolest part about this is the fact that it shows that God cares about us and protects us through the storms in our life.... And God doesnt expect us to believe Him blindly! He gives us little reminders to trust him, just like the rainbow. He gives us His word, which is full of reminders, He gives us His Holy Spirit, which is great at reminding us of Gods plan for our life, and I could go on and on...

When was the last time that you were going through something rough, and JUST WHEN YOU NEEDED IT, God used or did something to remind you that He is in control and He will not leave you or forsake you. It is so comforting to know we have a God who cares about us!

Third: I am sure that if you read to the end, then most of you were scratching your head on this one. I need to do some more research, but I can explain a little bit. Here is the story. Noah plants a vineyard. Noah makes some wine, drinks it, and gets FLAT OUT DRUNK!!!!! So drunk, that He ends up in his tent with no clothes on?!?! Well, His son, Ham, walks by the tent, and sees his father lying there naked... and What does he do? Does he just cover his father up to show respect? Nope! He goes and gets all his brothers to come and look at their dad. Instead of Honoring his father, He made a decision to tell others about his fathers shame, and therefore disrespected his Father.

When Noah found out, after he sobered up... He was ticked. So Ham was cursed, and all of his children that followed would be cursed. It is unbelievable how one bad decision can effect many generations to come. We clearly see that the people of Cannan are ungodly and cursed people throughout the rest of the Bible.

Respect your parents, don't dishonor them, and definitely DO NOT go tell other people to look at them if they are NAKED and DRUNK. We don't want to see that, so just Honor them and keep it to yourself!