GEN 6:9 ESV
These are the generations of Noah. Noah was a righteous man, blameless in his generation. Noah walked with God.
PERSONAL COMMENTARY
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HOPE: NOAH WAS A RIGHTEOUS MAN.
Righteousness is found in our faithfulness to God. God searches our hearts and minds and our faith is what God counts as righteousness. So the HOPE of our salvation is that we too can know God through His Son, and find repentance from our old ways and be renewed to a life of faith.
Being hopeful is accepting that God is faithful and wants a relationship with us through His offer of grace.
Hope is about salvation – about knowing the Truth.
FAITH: NOAH WAS BLAMELESS IN HIS GENERATION.
This doesn’t mean that Noah never sinned. But this does mean that Noah had faith in his life that filled his life with repentance, so that in the eyes of everyone in his generation, they saw him as blameless. We too are to live our lives as an offering to God, as His called and chosen that are set apart for God’s use – so we want to live faithfully so that our lives will be proof to ourselves of our faith (so that enemy of God has no weapons to continue using against us), and so that our lives are a fruitful example of Christ in us to others. Our actions as a Christian, the faithful lives of repentance that we live should speak just as loud, or even louder, than our words. Otherwise, how could people hear and believe a witness of “Christ in us” if they can only see the enemy’s darkness in our outwardly visible sins, and couldn’t search and find any evidence of fruitful light of Christ’s presence in our lives to support the claims of our words? People see us as blameless when we have faith and our lives are refined and repentant, because we are no longer seeking sinful pleasures like the rest of the world, we aren’t chasing and hungering for evil any longer.
Being faithful is not forgetting or forsaking Him in our decisions.
Faith is about the repentance that comes with salvation – having the wisdom to put our knowledge of the Truth into operation inside ourselves to clean this temple and make it ready for His use.
LOVE: NOAH WALKED WITH GOD.
This doesn’t mean that Noah walked around in Heaven. No, it means that God walked with Noah. And how did this happen? We know that God spoke to Noah to tell him to build the ark, but that is God speaking to Noah through the Word of God, through preincarnate Jesus Christ, the way that God has through the ages been able to speak and interact directly in this physical realm. But this says God walked with him. God walks with us once we have invited Him to come live in our lives, when we receive this gift of the Holy Spirit that abides in us and that is a refining fire to our soul, and is a guide to our steps, and that teaches us the ways of God, and that shows us God’s will for our lives. Walking with God is when God abides in us and He uses us to share His love with others.
Walking in God’s love is being ever mindful and aware of His presence in our lives and being alert to the opportunities where God can use us – then acting.
Love is about the service to others that comes with salvation – having understanding to put our wisdom of Truth into action in our outward actions and words that are helping others in their lives. Love is realizing that it isn’t about me obtaining a reward, it is about God reaching and touching and serving others through me.
TODAY
If you haven’t received Christ in you, if you don’t have this gift of the Holy Spirit that offers you hope in a hopeless world of darkness, I encourage you to pray and all Jesus Christ to come into your life and change you.
For those of us that have Christ in us, let’s stir our Holy spirit today. Let’s put it to work cleaning out those thoughts and sins in our lives that need to be removed and cleaned up. Let’s put it to work loving and serving others in the opportunities we encounter today.
I love you, friend. Have a wonderful day!
Harold J. Ballinger 