Just as He Commands

 DEVOTION

GENESIS

JUST AS HE COMMANDS

Gen 6:11-22

11 Now the earth was corrupt in God's sight and was full of violence. 12 God saw how corrupt the earth had become, for all the people on earth had corrupted their ways. 13 So God said to Noah, "I am going to put an end to all people, for the earth is filled with violence because of them. I am surely going to destroy both them and the earth. 14 So make yourself an ark of cypress wood; make rooms in it and coat it with pitch inside and out. 15 This is how you are to build it: The ark is to be 450 feet long, 75 feet wide and 45 feet high.   16 Make a roof for it and finish the ark to within 18 inches of the top. Put a door in the side of the ark and make lower, middle and upper decks. 17 I am going to bring floodwaters on the earth to destroy all life under the heavens, every creature that has the breath of life in it. Everything on earth will perish. 18 But I will establish my covenant with you, and you will enter the ark — you and your sons and your wife and your sons' wives with you. 19 You are to bring into the ark two of all living creatures, male and female, to keep them alive with you. 20 Two of every kind of bird, of every kind of animal and of every kind of creature that moves along the ground will come to you to be kept alive. 21 You are to take every kind of food that is to be eaten and store it away as food for you and for them."

22 Noah did everything just as God commanded him.

NIV

God instructed Noah, as we know from previous verses, because Noah found favor in the eyes of the LORD. God knew Noah was not like all the rest of mankind who had corrupted their ways and lived as violent people. We cannot imagine how horrible it must have been to live during that time. Since the flood and the refilling of the earth with people, there have been times and places where violence was, and still is, the way of life for some people. People still corrupt their ways, yet at the time of Noah, it must have been so corrupt that it caused pain in God's heart, and he decided to wipe out all mankind. We have thought about that before, but now we have Noah, whom God looked upon with favor. We can recreate what the ark looked like; in fact, one man has done that, at least what it was like on the outside, and possibly what it could have been on the inside. Some think they have located the site where the ark came to rest, finding the overall dimensions, or a reasonable facsimile. Interestingly, God caused all the animals, birds, and whatever moves along the ground to come to the place where Noah was building the ark. All the food for Noah, his family, and all living creatures would still have been made up of some type of plants, as everything that grows was food for them; they had not yet been given meat to eat. However, as interesting as all the building of the ark and God sending all living things in pairs to Noah is, there is this one basic truth that applies to those of us who have put our faith in Jesus and decided to follow him. We are told that Noah did everything just as God commanded him. We wonder how successful we have been and are at doing everything God commands us to do. We believe the first part of being obedient to his command is being willing to listen. It seems all too often when we pray, we do more talking than listening. How are we supposed to know what God wants us to do unless we hear from him? There may be times we may not actually hear his voice, but he still wants to show us what we are to do. Maybe it is just an open door, a sign, a prophecy, or some other way he gets our attention. What we can know for sure is that because we have decided to follow Jesus, we are not alone in this life. God wants to be involved and use us for his divine purpose, as he did with Noah. The choice we have is whether we are going to ignore him and do our own religious thing, or we are going to do everything he commands us to do. Have we decided what we want to do for the kingdom, or have we decided to do everything he wants us to do? We simply cannot do both. In reality, our ways are still corrupt, no matter how good we think we are. When we follow what we think is the best, it is not the best. Let us be willing to listen and then do everything just as he commands us to do.