14 day plan

On the road with God

Day 4 of 14

NIV

Genesis 6:9

Noah and the Flood

9This is the account of Noah and his family.

Noah was a righteous man, blameless among the people of his time, and he walked faithfully with God.

Reflection:  Here is another brief, but stirring, account of what you’d want to be said of you long after you’re gone: that you walked with God.  Today’s verse fills in more detail on what that means: it is to be righteous before God and blameless among men. Being ‘blameless’ seems fairly self-explanatory, but being ‘righteous’ is harder to define. The best we can often come up with is ‘not sinning’. But being righteous involves more than that. It is not only to refrain from doing evil, but to actively choose the good, and to seek to right what is wrong. Noah wasn’t perfect, but God used him to save humanity from the flood. He foreshadows Jesus, an even more righteous and blameless saviour who walks the way of the cross.

Prayer:  Our Father, we thank you that Noah walked with you and that you used him to preserve human life at the time of the flood. We also thank you that you sent Jesus to rescue all of humanity from the grave, and that in him we are righteous and blameless before you. Help us to follow Jesus always. Amen.

Genesis 6:1-22

Wickedness in the World

1When human beings began to increase in number on the earth and daughters were born to them, 2the sons of God saw that the daughters of humans were beautiful, and they married any of them they chose. 3Then the Lord said, “My Spirit will not contend with humans forever, for they are mortal; their days will be a hundred and twenty years.”

4The Nephilim were on the earth in those days—and also afterward—when the sons of God went to the daughters of humans and had children by them. They were the heroes of old, men of renown.

5The Lord saw how great the wickedness of the human race had become on the earth, and that every inclination of the thoughts of the human heart was only evil all the time. 6The Lord regretted that he had made human beings on the earth, and his heart was deeply troubled. 7So the Lord said, “I will wipe from the face of the earth the human race I have created—and with them the animals, the birds and the creatures that move along the ground—for I regret that I have made them.” 8But Noah found favor in the eyes of the Lord.

Noah and the Flood

9This is the account of Noah and his family.

Noah was a righteous man, blameless among the people of his time, and he walked faithfully with God. 10Noah had three sons: Shem, Ham and Japheth.

11Now the earth was corrupt in God’s sight and was full of violence. 12God saw how corrupt the earth had become, for all the people on earth had corrupted their ways. 13So God said to Noah, “I am going to put an end to all people, for the earth is filled with violence because of them. I am surely going to destroy both them and the earth. 14So make yourself an ark of cypress wood; make rooms in it and coat it with pitch inside and out. 15This is how you are to build it: The ark is to be three hundred cubits long, fifty cubits wide and thirty cubits high. 16Make a roof for it, leaving below the roof an opening one cubit high all around. Put a door in the side of the ark and make lower, middle and upper decks. 17I am going to bring floodwaters on the earth to destroy all life under the heavens, every creature that has the breath of life in it. Everything on earth will perish. 18But I will establish my covenant with you, and you will enter the ark—you and your sons and your wife and your sons’ wives with you. 19You are to bring into the ark two of all living creatures, male and female, to keep them alive with you. 20Two of every kind of bird, of every kind of animal and of every kind of creature that moves along the ground will come to you to be kept alive. 21You are to take every kind of food that is to be eaten and store it away as food for you and for them.”

22Noah did everything just as God commanded him.