I Will Be Your God, part 3

Your Reward

We all love rewards whether it is the skymiles we earn for using our credit card, the A we get on the test we studied so hard for, the free scoop of ice cream we receive after buying the previous nine, or a year-end bonus from our employer. In Genesis 15 God says, “Do not be afraid, Abram. I am your shield, your very great reward.” God declares to Abram and to us that he is our reward. Do we not tend to think of God as the giver of the rewards we want in life, but fail to see him as the reward itself, the greatest possible reward there could ever be?

About this promise of God to Abram, John Calvin wrote, “In calling himself his ‘reward,’ [God] teaches Abram to be satisfied with himself alone…since men, surrounded with various and innumerable desires of the flesh, are at times unstable, and are then too much addicted to the love of the present life…God declares that He alone is sufficient for the perfection of a happy life to the faithful…God is the highest and complete perfection of all good things… he not only pours upon us the abundance of his kindness, but offers himself to us that we might enjoy him…He who has God for his inheritance does not exult in fading joy; but as one already elevated toward heaven, enjoys the solid happiness of eternal life.”

The "solid happiness of eternal life" Calvin speaks of is ours now to the degree that we are satisfied in God himself as our great reward. That "solid happiness" can be hard to come by though. We live in a man-centered culture and we have a self-centered nature, and we are easily enticed by the innumerable things promising to reward us with happiness. All the while there stands Jesus, who has guaranteed the promise of Genesis 15:1 with his own blood at the cross. How will we respond? Here are a few questions to ponder:

What am I looking to for joy and satisfaction?

Am I satisfied in God, or am I constantly striving for something more, thinking that if only I could just have this thing or that, then I would be satisfied?

Is God himself the "end," or is he for you merely a "means" to all the "ends" you are really after in your life?

I Will Be Your God, Part 2

Never Again

Last time we considered the promise of God to Adam and Eve to send a Redeemer to come and fix the mess made by the sinfulness of mankind. In spite of God's promise, in the generations that followed Adam, the practice of sin grew worse and worse until it reached the depth of which we read in Genesis 6, "The LORD saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. And the LORD was sorry that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him to his heart." So in the great flood God "blotted out every living thing that was on the face of the ground, man and animals and creeping things and birds of the heavens" every living thing, that is, except Noah and his family and those on the ark.

After the flood was over, they came out of the ark to start life on earth again, and God said to Noah, "I establish my covenant with you, that never again shall all flesh be cut off by the waters of the flood, and never again shall there be a flood to destroy the earth."

The promise to Noah and to us is "NEVER AGAIN!" God declares that he will never again bring such destruction on this world and its inhabitants. It is a promise to preserve his people and his world, and his promise of redemption. God is committed to his promise to have a people and to be their God forever.

But given God's actions in Genesis 6 & 7, how can we know that God will not unleash his fury again and destroy us and all he has made?

The fact that God (who is holy and perfectly trustworthy) made a promise and has a consistent history of keeping his promises should be enough for us, but he gives more. He attaches a sign to his promise, a sign of the covenant he has made. The sign he gave Noah was what we call a rainbow. It is God's bow which he places in the sky to remind us and himself of the promise he has made. God's bow is a battle bow aimed away from us and toward himself as an expression of the depth of his commitment to preserve his people even at his own expense. Because of our unfaithfulness Jesus went to the cross and took the "arrows" we deserved restoring and assuring forever a relationship with God for us.

So the next time you see a rainbow, in addition to enjoying the beauty which God has made, remember his promise, "NEVER AGAIN!" which means he will preserve us and his world until Jesus comes again with glory to make all things right forever, and remember what Jesus endured to make that promise sure.