Corruption or Preservation?

Okay...I'll admit it...I'm a little late to the party, but I'm here!  If you are reading through God's Word using the plan in The Divine Mentor book, then you are ahead of me.  I just started my official reading plan this week.  And actually, I am choosing to read using a chronological plan this year.  Instead of reading the Bible in the order it is printed, I am reading it in the order the events actually occurred historically.  Since I homeschool my second-grader, I thought it would be interesting to see how history coincides with God's Word.

Truth is, it doesn't matter if you are on the right day, or which plan you use.  What matters is that we are seeking the Lord through His Word with all of our heart, soul, mind and strength.  So come on, be a rebel like me...just start today...better late than never!

As I was reading Genesis 4-7 this morning, one glaring fact jumped off the pages:  Sin corrupts.  God entrusted His perfect creation to Adam and Eve.  He placed them in the Garden to keep and cultivate what He had made.  It was His gift to them...a reflection of His beauty, majesty and provision. He had given them all they would need to live and thrive.  He created a world with such detail and intricacy...all they had to do was trust and obey Him.  And yet, they doubted.  Their eyes turned from the Giver to the gifts...from the Creator to the created.  And sin was there, crouching and waiting to devour, kill, steal and corrupt.

In Genesis 5:11 God told Noah that the earth was corrupt because of man's sinfulness upon it.  Sin's effects are far-reaching and devastating.  One wrong choice, if left alone, can spiral into generations of sinfulness.  And yet Noah stood as a righteous man in his generation.  Thanks be to God that repentance has always been, and will always be, a choice we can make.  Just as Noah chose to trust and obey God, so can we.

His great faith led to God preserving his life and the lives of his wife and children.  God Almighty slammed the door of that ark shut because Noah believed and obeyed.  What a contrast to Adam and Eve.  One shut out, one shut in.  One who doubted, one who believed.  One's paradise the perfect creation of God, one's an ark of escape and refuge from the wrath of God as He destroyed that perfect creation.  The choice of the first led to the circumstances of the second.  And the choice of the second led to the existence of you and I.  All was not lost.  There was one righteous.

Ladies, it only takes one life to change the course of generations.  It has nothing to do with the greatness of man, but the greatness of God.  He is willing and able to use anyone who will simply believe and obey.  We have been given a choice...corruption or preservation?  The choice is yours, but the effects of this choice will extend far beyond your one life.