I am an avid reader of the local newspaper every morning. I was expecting the news today to be all about the football game yesterday and detailing the stats and players, trying to suggest how the team can improve or who to bench next. A normal Monday morning article. But this is not what I saw today. Instead this was the cover story. An article detailing out a new gathering on Sunday mornings in my city that celebrates life without God. They are not a church, but they act just like a church. They had singing, a sermon, and even small groups.
As I read this article, I couldn’t help but wonder what did God think when this was happening?
Very recently I was told about If:Equip (read more here) and have loved their study methods of God’s Word. Right now we are going through the book of Genesis and I adore this book of the Bible. I have studied Genesis in the past and really fell in love with it then. But today’s study was on Genesis 6 where God looks over all He has created and finds that the people are just committing so much evil that it breaks His heart. I love how the Message version states this:
God saw that human evil was out of control. People thought evil, imagined evil–evil, evil, evil from morning to night. God was sorry that he had made the human race in the first place; it broke his heart. God said, ‘I’ll get rid of my ruined creation, make a clean sweep: people, animals, snakes and bugs, birds–the works. I’m sorry I made them.’ Genesis 6:5-7 (emphasis added)
How do you want your life to be defined: as the one who broke God’s heart by pursuing evil or the one who found favor in the eyes of the Lord? Have we become the ruined creation that breaks the heart of God?
All of this just reminds me of the urgency of the Gospel and our obedience. In the If:Equip study today, Shelley Giglio said that everyday is another opportunity for us to believe God and to obey Him. Out of our belief comes our obedience. What is your obedience, or lack of obedience, showing God and those around you what you truly believe? What does it look like today for me to choose to follow after God and to find favor in His eyes instead of tears of regret?
Today let’s forsake the identity of a ruined creation and boldly proclaim that God desires a redeemed creation through the life saving sacrifice of His son.
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