Photo provided by Cricket Green
Today one of my blog followers posted this photo. Instantly
when I viewed the photo I could see where a great storm
had gone through the terrain and great devastation took
place, yet the land is just beautiful and here we are
thousands of years later viewing its awesome beauty.
We all understand that the storm came due to sin upon
the earth. So many animals and people died under
the destruction, yet the land didn't stay exactly the
way it was after the great storm.
It reminded me of some of our lives.
We all sin and there are many ways destruction comes
upon our lives but does that give us the right to keep
the destruction as it appeared the moment it occurred.
Absolutely not!
Yesterday I was speaking with a gentleman who told
me about his brother that had gone to prison and
accepted Christ. You could see forgiveness wasn't
in his heart when he talked about the man.
You see, the young man had changed his terrain, yet
the way others viewed him hadn't changed.
You may fit into one of these categories.
If you are the first; forgive yourself and let the
Lord make your life beautiful for others to behold
instead of keeping the guilt built up inside causing
your life to be broken and distorted.
If you fit into the second category, be willing to
forgive other and give others the chance to recover
and be a different person.
Does this mean there will be no boundaries?
No, but it does mean you don't talk badly about
them or accuse them constantly.
It means you offer grace to them to prove
themselves to be changed and let the
beauty of the Lord Jesus Christ to shine
through their lives so that others can
see what a loving great God we serve.
In the six hundredth year of Noah’s life, in the
second month, the seventeenth day of the month,
the same day were all the fountains of the great
deep broken up, and the windows of heaven
were opened. And the rain was upon the earth
forty days and forty nights. In the selfsame day
entered Noah, and Shem, and Ham, and Japheth,
the sons of Noah, and Noah’s wife, and the three
wives of his sons with them, into the ark; They,
and every beast after his kind, and all the cattle
after their kind, and every creeping thing that
creepeth upon the earth after his kind, and every
fowl after his kind, every bird of every sort. And
they went in unto Noah into the ark, two and two
of all flesh, wherein is the breath of life. And they
that went in, went in male and female of all flesh,
as God had commanded him: and the LORD
shut him in.
Genesis 7:11-16
And God said, This is the token of the covenant
which I make between me and you and every
living creature that is with you, for perpetual
generations: I do set my bow in the cloud, and
it shall be for a token of a covenant between me
and the earth. And it shall come to pass, when I
bring a cloud over the earth, that the bow shall
be seen in the cloud: And I will remember my
covenant, which is between me and you and
every living creature of all flesh; and the waters
shall no more become a flood to destroy all flesh.
And the bow shall be in the cloud; and I will look
upon it, that I may remember the everlasting
covenant between God and every living creature
of all flesh that is upon the earth. And God said
unto Noah, This is the token of the covenant,
which I have established between me and all
flesh that is upon the earth.
Genesis 9:12-17