Genesis 9:1 God blessed Noach and his sons and said to them, “Be fruitful, multiply and fill the earth. 2 The fear and dread of you will be upon every wild animal, every bird in the air, every creature populating the ground, and all the fish in the sea; they have been handed over to you. 3 Every moving thing that lives will be food for you; just as I gave you green plants before, so now I give you everything — 4 only flesh with its life, which is its blood, you are not to eat. 5 I will certainly demand an accounting for the blood of your lives: I will demand it from every animal and from every human being. I will demand from every human being an accounting for the life of his fellow human being. 6 Whoever sheds human blood, by a human being will his own blood be shed; for God made human beings in his image. 7 And you people, be fruitful, multiply, swarm on the earth and multiply on it.”
(v) 8 God spoke to Noach and his sons with him; he said, 9 “As for me — I am herewith establishing my covenant with you, with your descendants after you, 10 and with every living creature that is with you — the birds, the livestock and every wild animal with you, all going out of the ark, every animal on earth. 11 I will establish my covenant with you that never again will all living beings be destroyed by the waters of a flood, and there will never again be a flood to destroy the earth.” 12 God added, “Here is the sign of the covenant I am making between myself and you and every living creature with you, for all generations to come: 13 I am putting my rainbow in the cloud — it will be there as a sign of the covenant between myself and the earth. (Complete Jewish Bible)
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It’s truly a great mystery that the God of the universe would choose to enter into covenant with weak, frail, imperfect humanity. The covenant made with Noah reveals a couple of key components instructive for us. First the covenant between God and Noah was made after a traumatic, life-altering event (the flood). Can you imagine the trauma of not only building an ark but then watching as everyone else died while he and his family were spared? Or living on the ark for months without any land in sight? How grateful Noah must have been to find his feet once again on solid ground. God comes to us when we are at our weakest and most vulnerable. Second, God specifically tells Noah that life is to be protected and preserved. When we read this scripture today, we tend to focus on the penalties for taking a life. However, the greater emphasis here must fall on God’s command to protect life. God is a God of life, of renewal, of creation.
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Hymn for Today: "O God, Our Help in Ages Past" by Isaac Watts.
1. O God, our help in ages past,
Our hope for years to come,
Our shelter from the stormy blast,
And our eternal home.
2. Under the shadow of Thy throne
Thy saints have dwelt secure;
Sufficient is Thine arm alone,
And our defence is sure.
3. Before the hills in order stood,
Or earth received her frame,
From everlasting Thou art God,
To endless years the same.
4. A thousand ages in Thy sight
Are like an evening gone;
Short as the watch that ends the night
Before the rising sun.
5. Time, like an ever-rolling stream,
Bears all its sons away;
They fly forgotten, as a dream
Dies at the opening day.
6. O God, our help in ages past,
Our hope for years to come,
Be Thou our guard while life shall last,
And our eternal home.
Thought for Today: He invigorates the exhausted,
he gives strength to the powerless.(Isaiah 40:29)(Complete Jewish Bible).
Please pray: That many people in Angola will come to know Yeshua as their Messiah and receive the fullness of the Ruach HaKodesh.
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