Kansas City, Missouri, United States - Reflecting God – Embrace Holy Living - “Business As Usual” – Monday, 8 September 2014 - Scripture: Genesis 6:1-8; 9:8-17

Kansas City, Missouri, United States - Reflecting God – Embrace Holy Living - “Business As Usual” – Monday, 8 September 2014 - Scripture: Genesis 6: Giants in the Land
6:1-2 When the human race began to increase, with more and more daughters being born, the sons of God noticed that the daughters of men were beautiful. They looked them over and picked out wives for themselves.
3 Then God said, “I’m not going to breathe life into men and women endlessly. Eventually they’re going to die; from now on they can expect a life span of 120 years.”
4 This was back in the days (and also later) when there were giants in the land. The giants came from the union of the sons of God and the daughters of men. These were the mighty men of ancient lore, the famous ones.
Noah and His Sons
5-7 God saw that human evil was out of control. People thought evil, imagined evil—evil, evil, evil from morning to night. God was sorry that he had made the human race in the first place; it broke his heart. God said, “I’ll get rid of my ruined creation, make a clean sweep: people, animals, snakes and bugs, birds—the works. I’m sorry I made them.”
8 But Noah was different. God liked what he saw in Noah.
9:8-11 Then God spoke to Noah and his sons: “I’m setting up my covenant with you including your children who will come after you, along with everything alive around you—birds, farm animals, wild animals—that came out of the ship with you. I’m setting up my covenant with you that never again will everything living be destroyed by floodwaters; no, never again will a flood destroy the Earth.”
12-16 God continued, “This is the sign of the covenant I am making between me and you and everything living around you and everyone living after you. I’m putting my rainbow in the clouds, a sign of the covenant between me and the Earth. From now on, when I form a cloud over the Earth and the rainbow appears in the cloud, I’ll remember my covenant between me and you and everything living, that never again will floodwaters destroy all life. When the rainbow appears in the cloud, I’ll see it and remember the eternal covenant between God and everything living, every last living creature on Earth.”
17 And God said, “This is the sign of the covenant that I’ve set up between me and everything living on the Earth.”
“Business As Usual” by Nina Gunter

We have all read the story of Noah and the ark. In it, we see that even though Noah was a “preacher of righteousness,” the people paid no attention to him or to the grace-filled warnings from God. They had become secular in all their indulgences and thoroughly immersed in sin. They had been called to weep, repent, and turn to God, yet rather than responding to God’s mercy with joy and gladness, they continued with “business as usual.”
In the same way, God calls His followers to take a spiritual inventory along the journey. If we are true followers of Christ, we will repent of our “business as usual” attitude and behaviors. When we sincerely ask God to examine our hearts and heed His correction, we will become more deeply committed to fulfilling His purposes in our lives.
As the prophet Hosea exhorted Israel, “Sow righteousness for yourselves, reap the fruit of unfailing love, and break up your unplowed ground; for it is time to seek the LORD, until he comes and showers his righteousness on you” (Hosea 10:12).
Hymn for Today:

"Cleanse Me" by J. Edwin Orr
1. Search me, O God, and know my heart today,
Try me, O Savior, know my thoughts, I pray;
See if there be some wicked way in me;
Cleanse me from every sin, and set me free.
2. I praise Thee, Lord, for cleansing me from sin;
Fulfill Thy word and make me pure within;
Fill me with fire, where once I burned with shame;
Grant my desire to magnify Thy name.
3. Lord, take my life, and make it wholly Thine;
Fill my poor heart with Thy great love divine;
Take all my will, my passion, self and pride;
I now surrender, Lord, in me abide.
4. O Holy Ghost, revival comes from Thee;
Send a revival, start the work in me;
Thy Word declares Thou wilt supply our need;
For blessings now, O Lord, I humbly plead.

Thought for Today:

“God's attitude towards sin never changes.”
Prayer Needs:
For faculty and students as they prepare for full-time Christian ministry in Costa Rica.
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