Noah…did all that God commanded him.
--Genesis 6:22
Noah certainly lived a life of faith in the Lord. The earth had never seen rain before, so the idea of water falling from the sky was a ridiculous and silly notion in those days. But that didn’t stop Noah from announcing the fact that God was going to send rain.
Noah believed God so much that he built an ark right in the middle in his own front yard. What would you or I do if God commanded us to do something like that? Maybe we would just laugh and say, “Lord, You must be joking.”
But as our society moves further and further away from God, we as Christians may find ourselves being called by God to do things that seem pointless to others. That’s when we need to remember that Christ has a bigger and better plan than we do.
In Luke 19:13, the Lord says to take care of His business until He comes back. God’s business is establishing His kingdom on earth, and it’s our responsibility to be salt and light in this dark world. These are desperate times of sin and unfaithfulness, and you and I have a message of hope that we are to be spreading like wildfire!
The only way to leave a lasting impression for Christ and ultimately change the world is to live a life of complete faith and obedience. That’s something you can do today. And as you are faithful each day, God will use you to do something world-changing!
God calls us to live a life of complete faith in and obedience to Christ.
by Dr. Paul Chappell
“Take heed to yourselves: If thy brother trespass against thee, rebuke him; and if he repent, forgive him. And if he trespass against thee seven times in a day, and seven times in a day turn again to thee, saying, I repent; thou shalt forgive him.”
Luke 17:3–4
Henry Earl of Kentucky holds the dubious distinction of being the most arrested man in the world. According to news reports, he has been arrested more than 1,500 times. Since the courts consider most of the charges minor, many of them related to public intoxication or disorderly conduct, Earl has rarely been sentenced to more than a few days in jail for each offense. Yet because of the massive number of arrests, Henry Earl has spent more than sixteen years of his life in confinement.
All of us have people in our lives who hurt us and do things to us that are wrong. God calls us and commands us to forgive them—not just the first time they do it, but over and over again. The pattern and model for forgiveness, even toward repeat offenders, is set by the way God treats us: “And be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ’s sake hath forgiven you” (Ephesians 4:32). While we don’t like to admit it, the truth is that we ourselves are in constant need of God’s mercy and forgiveness.
Because we need forgiveness on an ongoing basis, often for the same offense against God, we must not fail to extend forgiveness to others. Of course this does not mean that we allow ourselves to suffer repeated injury, but we cannot obey God and refuse to forgive those who harm us, even if they are repeat offenders. While it is easier to cut people off and hold what they have done against them, in the end, it harms us far more than it impacts the offender.
Today’s Growth Principle:
God’s forgiveness and patience toward us is the example we are meant to follow with others.
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