Friday, January 3, 2020

Fri.’s Devo - Walking in Righteousness

Read: Genesis 5:1-7:24; Matthew 3:7-4:11; Psalm 3:1-8; Proverbs 1:10-19
Yesterday we read the genealogy of Cain and today we read Seth’s. Man lived so much longer because the ozone layer had not yet been pierced by the flood. The oxygen level was higher and the air healthier. The ground was full of nutrients that hadn’t been depleted like they are now.
We don’t learn much about their personal lives until it comes to Enoch. Enoch lived 65 years then he must have had some kind of encounter with the Lord because once he had Methuselah, he walked with God for the next 300 years. He walked with God so closely that he walked right off this dimension into heaven bypassing death. He was a picture of the rapture of the Church.
I wonder if when he had Methuselah, God didn’t tell him that when he died the end of the world would come. He named him Methuselah which means “when he dies, it will come”. The day Methuselah died, Noah walked on the ark.
Why did God destroyed the earth? I think we get a clue in 6:4. There were Nephilim on the earth which were the offspring of the union of Satan’s angels with the women of the earth. These offspring were covering the earth and could do mighty things under the power of evil. The Book of Enoch tells how they taught man how to make drugs from plants and weapons of destruction from the metals of the earth and much more. God found Noah whose line was not contaminated with this demonic seed and saved him and his three sons and their wives. They would repopulate the earth with pure seed.
Creation scientists tell us that when the springs of the deep burst open (6:11) that the ozone layer was pierced letting our good oxygen begin to leak out. Man’s lifespan from that time on became shorter and shorter.
Just like Enoch was a picture of the rapture of those who follow Jesus, Noah was a picture of the new believers who will follow God after the rapture and go through the tribulation. They go through the storm with God.
In Matthew, John the Baptist set the Pharisees and Sadducees straight. He made it clear that just because they were Jews didn’t mean that they were God’s children. Their hearts would decide that.
Jesus came to John to be baptized and God sealed his baptism by sending his Spirit to visibly rest on Jesus. He spoke from heaven declaring Jesus to be his son. Then Jesus was immediately sent to the desert to be tempted.
I don’t know if Satan appeared to him in a form or a thought but I think it is important that we understand that temptation is not a sin. It is what we do with temptation that determines if it is a sin or not. Having a bad thought is not a sin, it is a firey dart from the enemy. We will have those darts thrown at us but we can learn from what Jesus did that we can fight them with the Word. Satan used the Word against Jesus but He knew the spirit of which it was coming to him and answered it with the Word for the moment.
Our Proverbs tell us that if sinners entice us we don’t have to give in to them. We have been given power over sin and are no longer its slave. We can obey God, every time, because we have the nature of God in our beings and have crucified our flesh to the cross. As we mature in our walk with the Lord, I think that it is harder to sin than to choose rightly because we have trained our senses to obey. It is no longer us that live!
Lord, help us to live in the inheritance you purchased for us at Calvary. You are righteous and holy and we can walk in that same spirit.

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