I Want What He Has!

Reading in the book of Genesis today.
Chapter 6 where everything begins to unravel.
God has watched as mankind has spiraled downward into complete darkness spiritually.
God's patience is greater than mine (duh?).
He waited and talked and shared and warned but no one listened.
Now there is only one man.
One human being on the face of the planet that is following him.
Wow! Do you think Noah was ever intimidated? Do you think he felt out of place amidst all the glitz and glamour that sin has to offer? Do you think that he thought to himself, " What if I'm wrong? What if the way I see things is not right? After all.....EVERYONE IS DOING IT!"

Verse 8 in Chapter 6 of Genesis is so powerful when you really stop and chew on it.
But Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord.
The word found, according to Strong's Concordance, means to exist, to occur, to appear. In other words, Noah was living right and the Grace of God........The empowering presence of God which enabled Noah to be who he was created to be and for Noah to be able to do all that he was created to do...was imparted to him.

Noah found grace.
In the middle of the darkest time the earth has ever known. When the heart of God and the purposes of God could only be found in one individual, God gave grace to Noah.
Noah didn't have 24 hour Christian TV and Radio.
There was no Zondervan or Destiny printing houses.
No Time Life Worship series on CD or Ipod to listen to.
Just Noah and God.
Maybe we clutter our lives up with a bunch of stuff that may not be as important as we think it is.
Maybe all we truly need is the presence of God.

Another interesting thing I saw in my reading this morning was in Chapter 6 - verse 22 -- "thus did Noah according to all that God commanded him, so did he."
If you go over to Chapter 7 and read verse 5, you'll see almost the same thing. "And Noah did according unto all that the Lord commanded him."
Did you catch that subtle shift in Noah's relationship with God.
Verse 22 -- God commanded.
Verse 5 --- Lord commanded.
Something happened that moved Noah in his relationship to seeing God not just as God, but as Lord.
Noah submitted and grew in this relationship to the point that he surrendered his life completely to God.
Making God Lord over his life. Now that's what I'm talking about.
You be Lord over me today.
I give up.
I hoist the white flag.
I throw down my guns..
My hands are raised.
My heart submitted to you, Lord.
Now, lets build an ark.

God on you.............
mb