I’m continuing in the helpfulness of yesterday’s reminder that all the wicked and evil people who were destroyed in the worldwide flood were Noah’s relatives, including his siblings. It is helpful because it puts our relationships to family members into perspective. We must put our faith in Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior no matter what anyone thinks of us, including family.
Yesterday, the spotlight of God’s word was on the fact that the generation of wicked and evil people surrounding Noah were all his relatives. Today it panned from them to center stage where one person was standing: Noah’s real Father.
What stands out is that Noah is not an example of a strong man who was so self-satisfied that he could do as he pleased without regard for what anyone thought of him. Rather, he had a faith that was so attached to God as his real Father that the worth of knowing his Father was supremely greater than the worth of knowing his relatives.
It also stands out that Noah’s faith in God was real enough that all three of his sons wanted to attach to his faith in God rather than to their relatives’ attachment to wickedness and evil.
I feel like I have just walked through a doorway into a room full of treasures waiting for me to explore, but these two things were uppermost in my mind as I got ready for my truck route prayer walk: Jesus teaching us to pray, “Our Father in heaven,”[1] and Paul’s starting place in prayer as, “For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named…”[2]
This is what Noah understood in his day, that “every family in heaven and on earth” originated from “the Father”. So, when there was a conflict between the evil of his relatives and the goodness of his Father, his faith was in his Father no matter what his family thought of him.
God is not calling people who are addicted to things we value more than him to be heroic and follow him anyway. He is calling us to find the treasure hidden in the field, a kingdom where we are fully restored to relationship with the Father, so that we will attach to him in faith no matter what any mere creature of dirt is doing around us.
It is still true that, “And this is
eternal life, that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you
have sent.”[3]
Come and get to know God no matter what your family thinks of you. Your
relentless testimony might show them that your way in Jesus Christ is actually
vastly superior to their way in themselves.
© 2020 Monte Vigh ~ Box 517, Merritt, BC, V1K 1B8
Email: in2freedom@gmail.com
Unless otherwise noted, Scriptures are from the
English Standard Version (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version. ESV® Text
Edition: 2016. Copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of
Good News Publishers.)
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