We all love the story of Noah don't we? We decorate babies rooms with the ark and the animals, we have toys with the ark and the animals, we love rainbows and some even name their sons Noah. We are fascinated with the story. It's a story of God's love, His promises, His mercy and grace. It's also a story of God's nature and how He feels about sin. In case you missed it, He HATES sin! Hates it so much that He regretted making the earth because of the sin in it and ultimately decides to kill everything in the earth because of it. But this wasn't a hasty decision, not at all.
5 Now the LORD observed the extent of the people's wickedness, and he saw that all their thoughts were consistently and totally evil.
So you see, humans weren't just sinning once in a while. They weren't just having a bad day and having a breakdown. No, they were consistently evil. Definition of consistent: constantly adhering to the same principles, course, form etc. So their very principles were evil, the course they took in their daily life was evil, the way they did things, their form, was evil. So God decides He's had enough with them, basically there was no hope for them, so get ready, it's gonna rain.
Then there's Noah. Good old Noah. What made Noah so special? Was he perfect? Did he always pay his tithe, go to church every Sunday and teach Sunday school? Maybe, but what made Noah stand out to God? What made God say, now Noah, I like him, I think out of all the people on the earth, I'll let him live? The bible tells us what made Noah so special to God.
v9 - He consistently followed God's will and enjoyed a close relationship with him.
So on the one hand we have all the people of the earth who are consistently evil, then there's Noah who is consistently following God's will and consistently in relationship with Him. There's no, "I wanna pray" one day and "I don't feel like it" the next. No, "I know that God said I should do this or shouldn't do that but I really want to do things my way". Nope, not Noah. Noah was consistent. Does that mean that he never screwed up? Never made a bad choice? Never sinned? Of course not, he was human after all. But Noah's heart was set to please God. Noah's principles were based on what God said, not on what Noah felt. Noah invested his time and energy in having a relationship with God and God enjoyed His relationship with Noah and decided to spare him and his family as a result.
We're all consistent, the question is what are we consistent with? Are we consistently negative or consistently positive? Are we consistently gossiping or consistently building others up? Are we consistent tithers or consistently withholding? Are we consistently spending time with the Lord praying and reading our bibles or are we consistently making excuses?
If I were in Noah's day and Noah wasn't there, would God have been able to spare the earth because of my consistency? Or would I have been counted among those that God was sorry He ever made? That's harsh, I know, but I'm asking myself that question, you can choose to ask yourself if you want.
I hope that in the asking I will find myself striving toward the goal of being consistent in my walk with the Lord. I may never make the mark of sparing the earth based on my relationship with Jesus, but I sure as heck am gonna try.
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