The Flood
Listen to today’s reading:
Genesis 7:1-5
The Lord then said to Noah, “Go into the ark, you and your whole family, because I have found you righteous in this generation. Take with you seven pairs of every kind of clean animal, a male and its mate, and one pair of every kind of unclean animal, a male and its mate, and also seven pairs of every kind of bird, male and female, to keep their various kinds alive throughout the earth. Seven days from now I will send rain on the earth for forty days and forty nights, and I will wipe from the face of the earth every living creature I have made.”
And Noah did all that the Lord commanded him.
Psalm 68:20
Our God is a God who saves;
from the Sovereign Lord comes escape from death.
Matthew 5:43-48
Therefore Jesus said again, “Very truly I tell you, I am the gate for the sheep.
Today’s Reading:
Performance dictates decisions that a coach should make about his team. By experience, good coaches won’t punish their team or individual players for playing their best and losing to a better team, but they will sometimes correct their teams with poles, bear crawls, or pushups for boneheaded mistakes and terrible effort that costs the team. For sure expect a coach to punish a team or player for any and all lackadaisical effort. Coaches hate when their team or an individual doesn’t come to play. The patience of a coach only goes so far. It’s a coach’s objective to win, to make you a better player, teammate, and man, but sometimes they do mistakenly do the opposite. Coaches can and will make mistakes on how they manage their team and players. They are only human. God, on the other hand, is perfect. His grace overflows to us before giving punishment, even when we don’t feel or see it. He creates perfect punishment of sin. God was patient before the flood with many generations. When God saw that mankind was incredibly deep into sin in the days of Noah, God decided to do something huge. He decided to flood the whole world and wipe away mankind along with most of the earth. He waited patiently until the right time. He gave sinful man years and years to repent even in Noah’s lifetime. In his grace, he saved Noah, his family, and pairs of animals through the door of a wooden boat constructed by Noah (that God told him to build in preparation) that would float above the flood waters. In this story, we may miss the gospel connection. Jesus reveals it to us in John 6:38. He says, “Truly, truly, I say to you, I am the door of the sheep.” Thank God we are in a period of much grace and there is a door, like the door to Noah’s ark, to enter to save us from the punishment of sin even into the other side of death – that door being Jesus Christ. God, our coach, is making the church, our team, into something much greater than we can even dream.
Today’s Prayer Guide:
Praise – Praise God for his perfect grace, patience, justice, and correction.
Confession – Confess to God that you sometimes doubt his ways to set things right and his timetable to do so.
Ask – Ask God to steer you and your influence through the door of his forgiveness, Jesus Christ, as you continue to seek his ways.