Evil or Favor

 DEVOTION

GENESIS

EVIL OR FAVOR

Gen 6:5-8

5 The LORD saw how great man's wickedness on the earth had become, and that every inclination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil all the time. 6 The LORD was grieved that he had made man on the earth, and his heart was filled with pain. 7 So the LORD said, "I will wipe mankind, whom I have created, from the face of the earth — men and animals, and creatures that move along the ground, and birds of the air — for I am grieved that I have made them." 8 But Noah found favor in the eyes of the LORD.

NIV

How sad that man grieved the heart of God. We cannot imagine what the world was like when all of mankind had become so wicked that every inclination of the thoughts of their hearts was evil all the time. This would have meant no one ever had a good thought. This would have meant everyone was always thinking only about satisfying their own desires and those desires being evil, their own agendas, never being concerned about others. We wonder if it was a culture of murder and chaos, sort of like what it was thought the period of the Wild West was like, where every man carried a gun and life was cheap, or that time of the gold rush, where every man was for himself. We wonder what it really was like during the inquisitions. There have been periods throughout the history of man after the flood, that surely must have grieved the heart of God, and yet he did wipe them off the face of the earth. The evil had to have been so extreme, and so intense, that mankind was worse than it had ever been after the flood. We know evil still exists in the world today and as we do not know the heart of others we cannot know if every inclination of someone’s heart is always evil. Surely, we have some good thoughts too. When we examine our own hearts, we know that good thoughts are in our hearts, at least most of the time, for we are not always thinking of something evil. We also are living in a period of God’s grace. Because He sent Jesus to be that grace, and now he has given each person on earth the choice of whether they want life, or to perish. Because, we have chosen life, accepting Jesus as our Lord and Savior, we have life, but that still does not mean that we never ever have an evil thought. We are not as pure as we will be someday, but at least we can be assured God is not going to wipe all mankind from the face of their earth again. But, what about those thoughts of ours? How do we handle it when jealousy, greed, pride, anger, hurt feelings, envy, or some other selfish thoughts creep into our minds? We have to go to Jesus. Hopefully, we do not grieve God with our lives now that we are in Christ. Prayerfully, we seek the wisdom of the Spirit, and the desire to live rightly before our Lord, yet without the ability to achieve this perfect state, we still have some thoughts that are not righteous, which would have to be considered evil. Praise God, we are living in his grace, and not in a world that existed before the flood, yet there was one man who found the favor of God. This gives us the knowledge that no matter how evil the world becomes, we can find the favor of God because we are in Christ.