Rest

03/16/2006

SPIRITURAL DIARY

My Worship Time                  Focus:  Rest

Bible Reading & Meditation             Reference:  Genesis 5:28-32

            Message of the verse:  “28 ¶  Lamech lived one hundred and eighty-two years, and became the father of a son.  29  Now he called his name Noah, saying, ‘This one will give us rest from our work and from the toil of our hands arising from the ground which the LORD has cursed.’  30  Then Lamech lived five hundred and ninety-five years after he became the father of Noah, and he had other sons and daughters.  31  So all the days of Lamech were seven hundred and seventy-seven years, and he died.  32  Noah was five hundred years old, and Noah became the father of Shem, Ham, and Japheth.

            Noah’s name means rest and is close to the Hebrew word for comfort, which is what Noah did for the world.  It is possible that Noah and his father knew what it was that God was going to do, and for sure Noah did know what God was planning for the people of the earth because it was recorded in the Scriptures that God spoke to Noah about this. 

            As I read the account that is in Genesis I can see the line of the Messiah, like was mentioned before in one of the SD’s, but it becomes more crystal clear.  I can see that Satan is at work to stop the line of the Messiah, and God is at work to ensure that Satan does not stop this line.  There are different times in human history when Satan almost succeeded in stopping this line, but God has the last Word on all of this, for God promised that the Messiah would be born and it is for certain that He kept His promise, for the Lord Jesus Christ was born and it was at the cross that the head of Satan was crushed as God spoke of in Genesis 3:15.

            Noah is seen as a type of the Lord Jesus Christ and the rest that is meant by Noah’s name was given by the Lord Jesus Christ who said to the people of His day and to all who read it in the Bible, “Come to Me, all who are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and YOU WILL FIND REST FOR YOUR SOULS.”

            Spiritual meaning for my life today:  “The Lord Jesus Christ has given me rest from the work of trying to please God to accomplish the work of providing my own salvation apart from His Work, for Christ and He alone has provided my rest when He took my sin upon Himself on the Cross where he purged them and because of that act I know have His rest. 

The Word of God has given refreshment to my soul as I read it this morning.

My Steps of Faith Today:  I trust the Lord for the answers to everyday life, for at this time Sandy and I have some things that are upcoming and we need His direction and I trust the Lord to give them to us.  I trust the Lord to direct my path and also to teach me contentment in this world that has very little of it.

Early Generations of the Messiah

03/13/2006

SPIRITUAL DIARY

My Worship Time                  Focus:  Early generations of Jesus Christ

Bible Reading & Meditation             Reference:  Genesis 5:12-27

            Message of the verses:  “12  Kenan lived seventy years, and became the father of Mahalalel.  13  Then Kenan lived eight hundred and forty years after he became the father of Mahalalel, and he had other sons and daughters.  14  So all the days of Kenan were nine hundred and ten years, and he died.  15  Mahalalel lived sixty-five years, and became the father of Jared.  16  Then Mahalalel lived eight hundred and thirty years after he became the father of Jared, and he had other sons and daughters.  17  So all the days of Mahalalel were eight hundred and ninety-five years, and he died.  18  Jared lived one hundred and sixty-two years, and became the father of Enoch.  19  Then Jared lived eight hundred years after he became the father of Enoch, and he had other sons and daughters.

20  So all the days of Jared were nine hundred and sixty-two years, and he died.

21 ¶  Enoch lived sixty-five years, and became the father of Methuselah.  22  Then Enoch walked with God three hundred years after he became the father of Methuselah, and he had other sons and daughters.  23  So all the days of Enoch were three hundred and sixty-five years.  24  Enoch walked with God; and he was not, for God took him.

25 ¶  Methuselah lived one hundred and eighty-seven years, and became the father of Lamech.  26  Then Methuselah lived seven hundred and eighty-two years after he became the father of Lamech, and he had other sons and daughters.  27  So all the days of Methuselah were nine hundred and sixty-nine years, and he died.

This section of Scripture helps to confirm that the Bible, and in this case the OT, is a book about the Lord Jesus Christ.  Moses wrote this section of Scripture a long time after this event, which he did through the influence of the Holy Spirit.  When I look at the book of Genesis there are some other things that I would like to have seen in it, things like more of the people listed and where they came from.  I have stated before that when Adam and Eve had children, girls, then they married their brothers son Adam and Eve were in effect there own in-laws, but at any rate these things are not in the book of Genesis but the things that are in it all point to the Lord Jesus Christ.  From the time when Adam sinned and God promised to send a Redeemer through the seed of a woman some of the genealogies that are recorded in Scripture show the decedents of the Lord Jesus Christ.  There are two of these given in the NT, one in the book of Matthew, and the other in the book of Luke.  Matthews goes back to Abraham, and it is believed to be the blood line of Joseph, the stepfather of the Lord Jesus Christ, while the other in Luke is said to be the blood line of Mary, Jesus’ mother.  The difference between these two blood lines is from David on, and that probably was because of the sinfulness of the line that went from David through Solomon.  David was a distant relative of both Joseph and of Mary, but Mary’s came through Nathan.

At any rate this section of Scripture, which shows the line from Adam through Seth up to Methuselah the son of Enoch is part of the blood line of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Enoch seems to be one of the people in the Scripture that stands out for he and Elijah were the only two people recorded in Scripture who did not die, but went straight to heaven without experiencing death.  Enoch began to walk with God after his son Methuselah was born, and if you count up the years from the time that Methuselah was born until he died that was when the flood came to destroy all of the wicked upon the earth.  Dr. Wiersbe surmises that God could have spoken to Enoch when his son Methuselah was born to let him know of the plans that he had, but at any rate Enoch began to walk with the Lord when Methuselah was born and he walked with Him until he was 365 years old and God took him to heaven.  Some say that this could be a picture of the rapture of the Church that will come before the next great judgment that God will bring upon this earth and the people on it. 

I believe that one thing can be said about this line of people and for that matter all of those who are in the line of Jesus Christ, that they are all in heaven even at this time.

Spiritual meaning for my life today:  I believe that one of the things that I can learn from this section of Scripture is that all of these people were believers and lived in a crooked and perverse generation, and yet they were faithful to the Lord and walked with Him.  Enoch was said to have walked with the Lord and so was Noah who is Enoch’s grandson and was the seventh generation from Adam. 

When I think of how fast the world fell away from God, for Noah was the night generation from Adam, and then God judged the earth with the flood, so this proves exactly what Pastor Jacobs was teaching in our Sunday school lesson yesterday and that is that after the fall man could do nothing but sin because that became his nature.  This quote came from Augustine and was in the notes from our Sunday school lesson:  posse non peccare (able not to sin)  non posse non peccare (not able not to sin).  The first one speaks of Adam, and Adam was able to and did sin, and the last one speaks of Adam and his decedents after he sinned.  This shows why I need the Lord.

The Word of God has challenged my heart as I read and studied it this morning.

My Steps of Faith Today:  Trust the Lord to give me the grace that I need this day to live for Him.  Trust the Lord to search my heart of sin so that I can confess it to Him in order to have wonderful fellowship with Him today.  Trust the Lord to direct my paths and to teach me contentment.

Enosh, Part of the Godly Remnant

03/11/2006

SPIRITUAL DAIRY

My Worship Time                  Focus:  Enosh, Part of the Godly Remnant

Bible Reading & Meditation             Reference:  Genesis 4:26; 5:6-11

            Message of the verses:  “26 When Seth grew up, he had a son and named him Enosh. It was during his lifetime that people first began to worship the LORD.

            “6 When Seth was 105 years old, his son Enosh was born.

7 After the birth of Enosh, Seth lived another 807 years, and he had other sons and daughters.  8 He died at the age of 912.  9 When Enosh was 90 years old, his son Kenan was born.  10 After the birth of Kenan, Enosh lived another 815 years, and he had other sons and daughters.  11 He died at the age of 905.”

            Verse 26 of Genesis chapter four is a remarkable verse, in that it took so long for men to begin to worship the Lord again.  Adam was 130 years old when Seth was born and Seth was 105 years old when Enosh was born. 

            Enosh’s name means man, but not just man but a frail man, a man who can look at his condition as being frail.  God can use frail people because they are not proud, thinking that they can do things on their own apart from God’s strength helping them.

            There was now a remnant on the earth that began to worship the Lord, to call out to Him and to pray to Him.  God always has a remnant of believers on this earth as seen in the Scriptures, and usually the remnant is small, but that does not matter because small in the hand of God becomes powerful.

            Spiritual meaning for my life today:  I thank God that I am part of the remnant that has been chosen by Him, and I would like to continue to trust the Lord and be ready to serve Him in a way that He wants me to serve, for if I choose not to be humble before Him and draw on His strength and power then I will become worthless in serving Him.

The Word of God has challenged my heart as I read and studied it this morning.

My Steps of Faith Today:  Continue to trust the Lord with the problem of our finances, and continue to trust the Lord to direct our path and to teach me contentment. 

Seth: The Path to Messiah

03/09/2006

SPIRITUAL DIARY

My Worship Time                  Focus:  Seth the path to Messiah

Bible Reading & Meditation             Reference:  Genesis 4:25; 5:1-5

            Message of the verse:  “25 Adam slept with his wife again, and she gave birth to another son. She named him Seth, for she said, ‘God has granted me another son in place of Abel, the one Cain killed.’”

            “1 This is the history of the descendants of Adam. When God created people, he made them in the likeness of God.  2  He created them male and female, and he blessed them and called them ‘human.’  3  When Adam was 130 years old, his son Seth was born, and Seth was the very image of his father.  4  After the birth of Seth, Adam lived another 800 years, and he had other sons and daughters.  5  He died at the age of 930.”

            As written before there are a lot of things that the book of Genesis does not cover, things like when all of the people were born and to whom they were born to.  In this section this is being discussed today there is another boy born to Adam and Eve and this boy will take the place of Able who is already dead.  Seth continues the godly line to whom the Messiah is born to, and this can be seen in the Gospel of Luke, for the genealogy that is written there goes from Jesus Christ all the way back to Adam. In Genesis 3:15 God promised to bring a Redeemer to the earth and as the OT unfolds God gives more detail about who the Messiah will be born to.  This is how Luke 3:38 ties in Seth with the Lord Jesus Christ’s birth:  “the son of Enosh, the son of Seth, the son of Adam, the son of God.”

            Many times in this book of Genesis the ungodly line will be given and then the godly line will be given, and perhaps the reason for this is because the godly line will be the one that will continue forever.

            In verse 25 Adam says that he has a son born to him that will take the place of Able, so Adam knew that even though they must have had many children before Seth was born that Seth was the special on who would be in the line that God spoke of in Genesis 3:15.

            In chapter 5 and verses 1-5 the genealogy of Adam is given from Adam to Seth, but verse four comments that Adam had other sons and daughters and then verse five tells that Adam died at the age of 930 years old.  There are some who would say that the ages of these early people in the history of the world were counted a different way, but I do not believe that at all, for before the flood people lived a long, long time in comparence  how long they lived after the flood, and I think for good reason.  Before the flood the Bible says that there was a wall of water that was above the earth and this wall of water came down as part of the flood which caused more direct sun light to come down on the earth and thus more of it’s harmful rays, and this is why many scholars believe that the life span of man dropped after the flood and why, for instance, Adam could live so long.

            Spiritual meaning for my life today:  One of the reason that I like to study the OT is that I can see God’s plan being worked out, the plan of the Messiah’s birth being made ready.  There is no one on this earth or any place else that can stop God’s plan and by reading and studying the OT I receive confidence that God has a plan for my life and that I can trust Him to show me this plan and to give me the strength to follow it.  There are many things in my life that I do not like, yet because of the confidence that I have from reading God’s Word I can trust God to work all of these things out for my good and for His glory.

The Word of God has been challenging and refreshing to my heart as I read and studied it this morning.

My Steps of Faith Today:  Continue to have confidence in the Lord that He will direct my path and also continue to teach me contentment.

Cain's Wandering from the Lord

03/08/2006

SPIRITUAL DIARY

My Worship Time                  Focus:  Cain’s wandering from the Lord

Bible Reading & Meditation             Reference:  Genesis 4:16-24

            Message of the verses:  “16 ¶  Then Cain went out from the presence of the LORD, and settled in the land of Nod, east of Eden.  17  Cain had relations with his wife and she conceived, and gave birth to Enoch; and he built a city, and called the name of the city Enoch, after the name of his son.  18  Now to Enoch was born Irad, and Irad became the father of Mehujael, and Mehujael became the father of Methushael, and Methushael became the father of Lamech.

19 ¶  Lamech took to himself two wives: the name of the one was Adah, and the name of the other, Zillah.  20  Adah gave birth to Jabal; he was the father of those who dwell in tents and have livestock.  21  His brother’s name was Jubal; he was the father of all those who play the lyre and pipe.  22  As for Zillah, she also gave birth to Tubal-cain, the forger of all implements of bronze and iron; and the sister of Tubal-cain was Naamah.

23 ¶  Lamech said to his wives, ‘Adah and Zillah, Listen to my voice, You wives of Lamech, Give heed to my speech, For I have killed a man for wounding me; And a boy for striking me; 24  If Cain is avenged sevenfold, Then Lamech seventy-sevenfold.’”

In these nine verses there can be seen the family tree of Cain, which is a family tree of worldliness.  Later on God game Adam and Eve another son to replace Able who was Seth and if you look at the names of his decedents and the names of Cain’s decedents there are similar names and even names that are the same.  Dr. Wiersbe points out in his commentary that names don’t mean anything if one does not know the Lord. 

Cain’s great grandson is introduced in verse eighteen and his story goes to verse twenty-four where it reads that he kills two people and the story of Cain must have been told to him for he said that if the person that would have killed Cain would be avenged seven times that the person who killed Lamech would be avenged seventy times.  This has to mean that these decedents of Cain had to know about God and also know about Cain killing his brother Able.

These were the people of the world system, these decedents of Cain and they are still around today, in and even larger number.

            Spiritual meaning for my life today:  Verse 16 shows me that Cain made a choice that I never want to make, or for that matter could never make in the same way that he did, but I can walk away from the fellowship of the Lord, where as it is said of Cain that he went out from the presence of the LORD.

The Word of God has challenged my heart as I read and studied it this morning.

My Steps of Faith Today:  To continue to trust the Lord to guide me and to direct my path each day and to continue to trust the Lord to teach me contentment as He directs my path.

Cain's Wanderings

03/06/2006

SPIRITUAL DIARY

My Worship Time                  Focus:  Cain’s Wandering

Bible Reading & Meditation             Reference:  Genesis 4:11-15

            Message of the verse:  “11 ‘Now you are cursed from the ground, which has opened its mouth to receive your brother’s blood from your hand.  12 ‘When you cultivate the ground, it will no longer yield its strength to you; you will be a vagrant and a wanderer on the earth.’  13 Cain said to the LORD, ‘My punishment is too great to bear!  14 ‘Behold, You have driven me this day from the face of the ground; and from Your face I will be hidden, and I will be a vagrant and a wanderer on the earth, and whoever finds me will kill me.’  15 So the LORD said to him, ‘Therefore whoever kills Cain, vengeance will be taken on him sevenfold.’ And the LORD appointed a sign for Cain, so that no one finding him would slay him.”

            After the murder of Able by Cain God spells out the punishment for Cain, which is that he will never again be able to farm the soil in order to get his living.  God told Cain that he would be a wanderer on the earth; he would not have a home to live in and be able to stay in one place.  This punishment was a great burden on Cain and he spoke to the Lord about it, but he never repented of his sin of killing his brother.  Cain has a slippery slope down the ladder of sin, and it can be seen that he was a child of the devil.

            All that Cain did in his life was worthless, for after he left home and had children and their children had children and so on until the flood they would all perish, as the only one’s to survive would be the offspring of his brother Seth who would be born of Adam and Eve to replace Able whom Cain had murdered.

Cain was afraid that someone would kill him, but God put some kind of a sign or mark on him so that if anyone would kill him vengeance would be taken out sevenfold. 

There are some questions here that are not answered, but one can make some reasonable guesses for their answers.  Where did Cain get his wife?  I believe that because the gene pool was much more pure at that time and one could actually marry their sister and eventually their cousins without any type of bad affects like would happen today if this would be done.  Why was not Cain killed for killing his brother?  Capital punishment had not been established at this time, but would be later by God, and it has never been taken away by God to this day.

Spiritual meaning for my life today:  All of Cain’s problems began when he fell to his temptations and did not trust the Lord to get him past those temptations without sinning.  Temptation is not a sin and 1Cor. 10:13 comes into play here:  “No temptation has overtaken you but such as is common to man; and God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the temptation will provide the way of escape also, so that you will be able to endure it.”

The Word of God has been challenging to my heart as I have read it today.

My Steps of Faith Today:  Continue to trust the Lord to direct my path and to also teach me contentment.       

The Murder of Able

03/02/2006

SPIRITUAL DIARY

My Worship Time                  Focus:  The Murder of Able

Bible Reading & Meditation             Reference:  Genesis 4:8-10

            Message of the verse:  “8 Later Cain suggested to his brother, Abel, ‘Let’s go out into the fields.’ And while they were there, Cain attacked and killed his brother.

9 Afterward the LORD asked Cain, ‘Where is your brother? Where is Abel?’ ‘I don’t know!’ Cain retorted. ‘Am I supposed to keep track of him wherever he goes?’

10  But the LORD said, ‘What have you done? Listen—your brother’s blood cries out to me from the ground!’”  (NLT)

            The NLT seems to make it easier to understand this tragic story of the first murder recorded in the Scriptures, and it was probably the first murder ever to happen.

            Cain entreats his brother to come out into a field in order to kill him, and this was surely done because his sacrifice was rejected by the Lord and Abel’s sacrifice was accepted by the Lord.  After that happened Cain began to get angry to which the Lord came and spoke to him about his anger but Cain did not listen to the Lord and became so angry that he took his brother out to a field and killed him.

            The story gets worse as Cain now lies to the Lord when the Lord again confronts him, this time to give him his punishment because he did not heed the Lord’s warning given to him earlier. 

            Cain denies killing his brother  and then the Lord tells Cain that Abel’s blood was crying out from the ground.  Abel’s blood was crying out for justice because he had been wrongly killed by his brother.  The writer of the book of Hebrews compares the blood of Able with the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ, and Abel’s blood cried out from the ground while the Lord Jesus’ blood cries out from heaven.  Abel’s blood cries out for justice, while Jesus’ blood speaks of justice satisfied on the cross.

            Spiritual meaning for my life today:  This story and the way that Dr. Wiersbe wrote about this from his book on Genesis makes me think of the problem between my two sisters and how this problem needs to be taken care of because Kathy is not going to be able to have any type of correct worship of the Lord until this thing gets taken care of.  I need wisdom from the Lord in order to not do the wrong thing, but to do the correct thing concerning this.

The Word of God has brought a challenge to my heart as I read and studied this portion of it this morning.

My Steps of Faith Today:  Trust the Lord to give me the strength to apply this passage in the correct manner to help get my two sisters back on speaking terms.  Continue to seek the Lord for direction and contentment in my life.  

           

           

Two Sacrifices

02/28/2006

SPIRITUAL DIARY

My Worship Time                  Focus:  Two Sacrifices

Bible Reading & Meditation             Reference:  Genesis 4:3-7

            Message of the verse:  “3 So it came about in the course of time that Cain brought an offering to the LORD of the fruit of the ground.  4  Abel, on his part also brought of the firstlings of his flock and of their fat portions. And the LORD had regard for Abel and for his offering; 5  but for Cain and for his offering He had no regard. So Cain became very angry and his countenance fell.

6 Then the LORD said to Cain, ‘Why are you angry? And why has your countenance fallen?  7  ‘If you do well, will not your countenance be lifted up? And if you do not do well, sin is crouching at the door; and its desire is for you, but you must master it.’”

These five verses tell the story of the first sacrifices that were offered unto the Lord that are recorded in the Bible.  It may be, and probably was not the first sacrifices that were given, but this is the first recorded. 

            Cain brought a sacrifice and gave it unto the Lord, but his heart was not right with the Lord and therefore the Lord did not accept his sacrifice.  Cain became very angry over this and Satan would use this anger against Cain’s brother Able very soon.

            Able on the other hand brought a sacrifice to the Lord, and his heart was right with the Lord, and the Lord accepted his sacrifice.  These two sacrifices that were brought to the Lord were different, but this was probably not the reason as to why one was accepted and one was not, for as Dr. Wiersbe writes it was all a matter of the heart, for later on in the Law of Moses the types of sacrifices that Cain brought were proper to offer to the Lord.

Spiritual meaning for my life today:  Anger is something that I have always had to deal with, and needles to say have not always been successful in doing so, yet the Lord has given me great victories over my anger, especially lately and I can praise Him for that.

The Word of God has brought conviction and challenge to my heart as I read and studied His Word today.

My Steps of Faith Today:  Continue to trust the Lord with the trials and tests that He has sent me into, and trust the Lord to direct my path and also to keep teaching me contentment. 

Life After Adam and Eve's Sin

02/27/2006

SPIRITUAL DIARY

My Worship Time                  Focus:  Life after Adam & Eve’s Sin

Bible Reading & Meditation             Reference:  Genesis 4:1-2

            Message of the verse:  “1 Now Adam slept with his wife, Eve, and she became pregnant. When the time came, she gave birth to Cain, and she said, "With the LORD’s help, I have brought forth a man!"  2  Later she gave birth to a second son and named him Abel. When they grew up, Abel became a shepherd, while Cain was a farmer.”

            At the end of the third chapter we find Adam and Eve run out of the garden so that they would not be able to eat of the tree of life, and now we find in this chapter that Adam and Eve are expecting a child and their first child they named Cain, which sounds like the Hebrew word for acquired.  Eve is thankful to the Lord for their first son, and she gives gave thanks to the Lord for their first son.  She then has another son and his name is Able which sounds like the Hebrew word for breath, and it can be seen from his name that life is but a breath. 

            In Dr. Wiersbe’s book on Genesis he writes a lot about work when going over the last part of verse two.  Some of the things that he writes about work is that it was not a curse to man that came after their sin, but God is seen as working when He created the earth, and He also told Adam to work in the garden after God created him.  Work is something that God has always intended for man to do, and it is important that we allow God to give us direction on the kind of work that He would want us to do, for when a person is in a job that he does not like then things can be very difficult on both he and also on his family.

            The New Testament has some things to say about work, and it can be seen throughout its pages people working for a living.  When Jesus came to earth to become a man He worked as a carpenter until it was time for Him to begin His ministry, and even that was work.  It is often spoke of what Jesus Christ did on the cross as His work on the cross, for indeed it was work, and as a matter of fact the most important work that was ever done on this earth.

            Spiritual meaning for my life today:  There is something about having a job and doing the work on that job that really make life more satisfying to me.  When I went back to work at Ford there was not really a joy about it because it did not seem to me like that was where the Lord wanted me to be, but when I went to work for Tim a few years latter I had complete peace in doing that work because I sensed that this was truly where God wanted me to be.  Now as I work at the church with Sandy I am again satisfied with my job there, but still have a longing to work in a foreign field again like the one in Aruba and so I have not yet decided as to what it is that the Lord would have me to do, but in the mean time I will continue to pray about it and to seek God’s direction and also contentment in finding out what it is that God has for me to do as far as work.

The Word of God has challenged my heart as I read and studied it this morning.

My Steps of Faith Today:  To continue to trust the Lord for all of the trials that I have been going through over these past three years, and to continue to ask for God’s direction and for Him to continue to teach me contentment. 

More Results of First Sin

02/24/2006

SPIRITUAL DIARY

My Worship Time                  Focus:

Bible Reading & Meditation             Reference:  Genesis 3:20-24

            Message of the verses:  “20 Now the man called his wife’s name Eve, because she was the mother of all the living.  21 The LORD God made garments of skin for Adam and his wife, and clothed them.  22 Then the LORD God said, ‘Behold, the man has become like one of Us, knowing good and evil; and now, he might stretch out his hand, and take also from the tree of life, and eat, and live forever’—23 therefore the LORD God sent him out from the garden of Eden, to cultivate the ground from which he was taken.  24  So He drove the man out; and at the east of the garden of Eden He stationed the cherubim and the flaming sword which turned every direction to guard the way to the tree of life.”

            Verse 20:  I don’t know if Adam gave his wife a different name of if this is the name that she had all along, but at any rate this is the first mention of Eve in the Scriptures and she is the mother of all people who would be born after her. 

            Verse 21:  When Adam and Eve first sinned they tried to cover up their sin in a human way, but this verse shows that the wages of sin is death and in this case it was the death of an innocent animal, which I believe was a lamb, to provide covering for the couple.  It was God’s way of taking care of the sin and it was surely a picture of what the Lamb of God would do on the cross.

            Verse 22:  When Satan tempted Eve he said that she would be like God, knowing good from evil, and this is what God says in this verse, however Satan was tempting Eve for and evil purpose, while God wanted to keep this from Adam and Eve so that they would live a life that would be totally pleasing to God.

            Verse 23 & 24:  God now runs the couple out of the garden, or out of paradise so that they would not eat of the tree of life and live forever in their sin.  When Jesus Christ died on the cross He opened the door to paradise for all of those who would accept Him.

            Spiritual meaning for my life today:  The affects of what my “grandparents” did so long ago still affect me today, but better than that the affects of what the Second Adam did for me on the cross almost 2000 years ago have taken care of the problem of what the first Adam did.  Praise the Lord!

The Word of God has been refreshing to me because of the fact that the Lord Jesus Christ has paid the price for sin, the sin that began so long ago in the garden.

My Steps of Faith Today:  Continue to trust the Lord to give me the grace and mercy to live a life that is pleasing to Him each day, and to trust the Lord to direct my path today and to continue to teach me contentment.  To also trust the Lord to give me wisdom to teach His Word to the men in our Bible Study today.

             

Punishment of Adam

02/23/2006

SPIRITUAL DIARY

My Worship Time                  Focus:  Punishment of Adam

Bible Reading & Meditation             Reference:  Genesis 3:17-19

            Message of the verse:  “17 Then to Adam He said, ‘Because you have listened to the voice of your wife, and have eaten from the tree about which I commanded you, saying, ‘You shall not eat from it’; Cursed is the ground because of you; In toil you will eat of it All the days of your life.  18  ‘Both thorns and thistles it shall grow for you; And you will eat the plants of the field; 19  By the sweat of your face You will eat bread, Till you return to the ground, Because from it you were taken; For you are dust, And to dust you shall return.’”

            God has held Adam responsible for this first act of sin because he was not tempted to sin, but listened to his wife.  I do believe that Satan has used this ploy on more than one occasion that is using a woman to make a man fall into sin.  Adam was head over heals in love with Eve and perhaps this is the reason that he forgot about obeying God when she came to him with the fruit and asked him to eat of it, at any rate in Paul’s letter to Timothy he told him that Adam was the cause for the fall of mankind.

            God then put a curse upon the ground, and everything that grows out of the ground.  It is kind of hard to imagine what this earth looked like before the first sin, and how the ground produced the food necessary for life without even working to make any of it grow, but that was the way God had created it and that first sin has had it’s affect on everything that is on this earth including all of the plants and all of the animals. 

            Adam also learned that he would eventually die because of his sin and as he begin to work with the soil to provide food for his wife and himself he would have probably thought about his death that would happen some day, and also the death of his lovely wife.

            Spiritual meaning for my life today:  Just as Adam got sidetracked from listening to the Word of God, so can I, and that is why it is important to continue to read and study the Word of God each day so when those temptations come that the first thing that I will think about is the Word of God and what it has to say concerning that particular temptation.

The Word of God has been very challenging to my heart as I read it this morning.

My Steps of Faith Today:  Continue to trust the Lord to direct my path today and to continue to teach me contentment.    

           

Pain in Childbirth

02/22/2006

SPIRITUAL DIARY

My Worship Time                  Focus:  Pain in childbirth

Bible Reading & Meditation             Reference:  Genesis 3:

            Message of the verse:  “16 To the woman He said, ‘I will greatly multiply Your pain in childbirth, In pain you will bring forth children; Yet your desire will be for your husband, And he will rule over you.’”

            In Dr. Wiersbe’s commentary on this section he said that God did curse the serpent and also the Devil, but God did not curse Adam and Eve.  I guess that Eve’s bringing forth children in pain was a consequence to the sin that she committed.  As far as having a desire for her husband to rule over her this does in no way seem like it was a curse because this seems to carry over into the New Testament and in the writings of Paul where he wrote that husbands and wives should be submissive to each other.  There is also a section in Paul’s writings where he said that wives should be submissive to their husbands.  I think what this is all about is the order of creation and that is that the man was made first and then came the woman out of man, and this too is discussed in the writings of Paul.

            Spiritual meaning for my life today:  If there are any verses in the Scripture that have meaning on an everyday basis it is the ones in this section for all human life and also all of natures’ lives has been changed so very much because of the first sin that was created by our first parents in the garden.  Because of that sin I have been born with a sinful nature which only wants to sin and please the pleasures of my life, but thanks be to God, through Jesus Christ that I have received a new nature through faith in the finished work of the Lord Jesus Christ that was accomplished for my behalf on the cross.

The Word of God has challenged my life as I read and studied it this morning.

My Steps of Faith Today:  Continue to trust the Lord Jesus Christ to teach me contentment and to also direct my path, for in following the path that the Lord is directing for me, even through I will not always understand it or even appreciate it, yet I will have the assurance that what He is doing in my life will be best for me and will bring honor and glory to God my Father.

The First Mention of the Gospel

02/15/2006

SPIRITUAL DIARY

My Worship Time                  Focus:  The first mention of the Gospel

Bible Reading & Meditation             Reference:  Genesis 3:15

            Message of the verse:  “15 And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; he will crush your head, and you will strike his heel.’”

            “God’s words to Satan (v-15) are called the protevangelium, ‘the first Gospel,” because this is the first announcement of the coming Redeemer found in the Bible.”

            Paul wrote in Galatians 4:1 “But when the fullness of the time came, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the Law.” 

             The word of enmity can mean hatred, it can mean hostility, and it can mean bad feelings, and so if you look at the history between Satan and the Lord Jesus Christ from the Scriptures you can see all of these things, but that is certainly not all of the story, for if you look throughout history there has always been hatred between those who belong to Satan and those who belong to God.  One example would be the Muslims and their hatred for the true people of God, and how they have killed believers whenever they get a chance to do so.  Any believer who has been killed for the cause of Christ can be seen through the eyes of this verse.  Of course the best example of what this verse is truly written for is the crucification of Jesus Christ, and this is where Satan bruised the heel of Christ, but Christ, through His victory on the cross has crushed the head of Satan, for Satan’s fate was settled at the cross and one day soon he will be put into the lake of fire as written about in the last parts of the book of the Revelation.

            When Jesus was on this earth he spoke to some Pharisees and told them that “you are of your father the Devil,” so indicating that the Devil has offspring just as seen in this verse.  God has called all those who have been born-again through the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ His children or His offspring, which is also what this verse is speaking of.

            Spiritual meaning for my life today:  Whenever a child is born into this world it can be called a miracle, but the bigger miracle is when a person is born from above through the precious blood of the Lord Jesus Christ, for when that happens that person goes from being a child of Satan to becoming a child of God, and that miracle happened to me on the 26^th of January in the year 1974, and that was truly the biggest miracle that has ever happened to me or ever will.

The Word of God has been refreshing to my heart as I read and studied it this morning. 

My Steps of Faith Today:  To continue to trust the Lord to lead me and to direct my paths, and to also have the Lord teach me contentment.  Continue to trust the Lord with the decision of what job to work at, whether to stay at the church or to go and work with Tim in the future, and also to continue to trust the Lord with the investment that we have with Andrew Lech.

The Serpent Cursed

02/14/2006

SPIRITUAL DIARY

My Worship Time                  Focus:  The serpent cursed

Bible Reading & Meditation             Reference:  Genesis 3:14

            Message of the verse:  “14 The LORD God said to the serpent, ‘Because you have done this, Cursed are you more than all cattle, And more than every beast of the field; On your belly you will go, And dust you will eat All the days of your life.’”

            There is only one who is cursed in this verse, and that is the serpent, who more than likely was a creature who stood upright when he was first created, but now will crawl on his belly for the rest of his days on this earth.  Satan was the one who used the serpent and he will be cursed in the next verse. 

            Spiritual meaning for my life today:  I have always been a bit confused as to why God cursed the serpent and made him crawl on the ground for the rest of his life.  I wonder if the serpent had the ability to refuse to be used of Satan in all of this.  Could it be that because of the beauty of the serpent before the fall that God did not want to leave it in that beautiful condition? 

            I must remember that the secret things belong to the Lord and that I am to obey the things that I know I am to obey and to try and find out the answers to my questions, but if I don’t find the answers then continue to trust the Lord.

            Another thing that I can learn from this passage is that I am never to be used by the evil one any more for I am sure that before I was a believer that I had been used by him because at that time I did belong to him, but that is all different because I have been purchased by the Lord Jesus Christ and belong to Him for all of eternity.  Praise the Lord for His goodness to me!

The Word of God has been a challenge to my heart as I read and studied it this morning.

My Steps of Faith Today:  Continue to trust the Lord to direct my paths in all that I do and also to continue to trust the Lord to teach me contentment.  Trust the Lord in all of the trials and decisions that need to be made, that He will give me the confidence that the decisions that I make will be the one’s He has directed me to do.

Excuses not Confession

02/08/2006

SPIRITUAL DIARY

My Worship Time                  Focus:  Excuses not Confessions

Bible Reading & Meditation             Reference:  Genesis 3:9-

            Message of the verse:  “9 Then the LORD God called to the man, and said to him, ‘Where are you?’  10 He said, ‘I heard the sound of You in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; so I hid myself.’  11 And He said, ‘Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree of which I commanded you not to eat?’

12 The man said, ‘The woman whom You gave to be with me, she gave me from the tree, and I ate.’  13 Then the LORD God said to the woman, ‘What is this you have done?’ And the woman said, ‘The serpent deceived me, and I ate.’”

            God calls out to the first couple and asks them some questions.  God know everything and therefore was not in need of information from them, but gave them a chance to tell Him what happened. 

            In verse then the answer that Adam gives shows that he has died spiritually, but he never confesses this to God, only gives Him excuses for his actions.  Adam admits that he is afraid and naked, and that is why Eve and he were hiding.  In verse eleven God asks the question point bland as to whether or not they have eaten of the fruit, and Adam begins to give God excuses in verse twelve.  It should be noted how it was that God came to Adam and Eve, for He did not come to them as a judge, but He came to them as a loving Father in order to correct their action through love, and this is the way He comes to all of His children, but as a loving Father He still has to discipline His children and He will do that to Adam and Eve.

            God now begins to speak to Eve and she too uses excuses, and does not confess her sin to God.  The truth of the matter is that Eve was deceived, but Adam ate of the fruit without being tempted, and therefore Adam is the one who is blamed for the downfall of the human race.

            Spiritual meaning for my life today:  There are far too many times in my life when I just do not own up to my sin and begin to, like Adam and Eve, make excuses for my actions instead of just coming to God with the truth confessing my sin to Him.  But also like Adam I am embarrassed and even at times afraid of my Heavenly Father, which in and of itself is wrong, for John writes in his first letter that there is no fear in love, but that perfect love casts out fear, because fear has to do with torment, so as my Bible Study lesson for this week explains I need to grow in my love for the Lord.  

The Word of God has been both convicting and challenging to my heart as I read and studied it this morning.

My Steps of Faith Today:  Continue to be directed by the Lord, and also to continue to learn contentment, along with growing in my love for the Lord.

Hiding From God

02/06/2006

SPIRITUAL DIARY

My Worship Time                  Focus:  Hiding from God

Bible Reading & Meditation             Reference:  Genesis 3:8

            Message of the verse:  “8  They heard the sound of the LORD God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the LORD God among the trees of the garden.”

            Adam and Eve were afraid of God and therefore they hid themselves from Him when they heard Him walking in the garden in the cool of the day.  When God came to see Abraham before He was going to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah, it is said that He came walking in the heat of the day.

            Adam and Eve were afraid of God because of their sin, but they should have been running to God to ask forgiveness for their sin instead of running from God.

            It is said that the Lord rested after His creation was all created, and this was His Sabbath rest, and now He had to come to Adam and Eve because of their sin, an this interrupted God’s Sabbath rest, and it was because of sin that it was interrupted.  The entire Trinity choose to go back to work in order to take care of this problem of sin.  When Jesus Christ came to earth He too, worked on the Sabbath to heal people, and told His accusers that His Father was working and so He too was working.  Likewise the Holy Spirit is working to bring His elect to salvation.

            Spiritual meaning for my life today:  It is all to natural to run from God whenever I sin, instead of running to God as He desires me to do.

The Word of God has been a conviction to my heart as I read it this morning, and also it has been a challenge to me.

My Steps of Faith Today:  Continue to trust the Lord to direct my path and to teach me contentment.  

           

First Results of Sin

02/03/2006

SPIRITUAL DIARY

My Worship Time                  Focus:  First Results of Their Sin

Bible Reading & Meditation             Reference:  Genesis 3:7

            Message of the verse:  “7  Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loin coverings.”

            In verse six it is said that the woman saw the fruit, but now in verse seven both she and Adam could see that they were naked, which is one of the first results of their sin, for their eyes were opened and they now knew both good and evil. 

            The business of naked bodies is a big business in our world today, and if one looks back to the first result of sin they can realize that this business of naked bodies, especially in the porn business is very sinful. 

            The first thing that Adam and Eve did after they sinned was trying to take care of the problem by themselves, in that they sewed fig leaves together in order to cover up their sinfulness.  Talk about having your bad days, this was the worst day in human history.

            It surely would have been better to have seen this problem before it came to this, and the only way that would have been possible was to listen to the Word of God, and trust Him, but they did not do that.

            Spiritual meaning for my life today:  I can avoid a lot of problems for myself if I would only obey the Word of God, and part of that is to seek the Lord to direct my paths each day of my life, and listen to His Spirit to give me the direction that I need.

The Word of God has been very challenging to my heart as I read and studied it this morning. 

My Steps of Faith Today:  Continue to trust the Lord as I go through the trial that I am involved in, and also to trust the Lord for His will as I go to the doctors this afternoon.  To trust the Lord to direct my path, and to teach me contentment.