Finding Favor with God

Noah found favor with the Lord. (Genesis 6:8) 

The hope of every believer's heart is that they 'find favor with the Lord' in all they say, think, and do. At times, we aren't very wise in our choice of words, so we waver a bit there. We waver a bit in the area of our thinking as we don't always 'put our thinking caps on' before we speak or act. We definitely waver in the 'doing' part of life as our mind may desire to do one thing, but we end up doing what our emotions 'feel' rather than what we know to be right. Noah was righteous and blameless before God. Out of all the people on earth, he alone found favor before God. Compared to the rest of the world around him and you will see they were so evil that God got to the point he could not bear it anymore. His justice demanded that he punish them. 

I can only imagine how difficult it would be to live a righteous life in this kind of evil and vile environment. There was absolutely no restraint against sin. Everybody else was engaging in the worst of sins shamelessly and actually encouraging others to follow in their choices. Violence, immorality of all kinds, cheating in the marketplace, lying to get ahead, murdering one another, and a number of other sins that would curl your hair if I wrote them here. But Noah, just like Enoch and Seth before him stood out to God as 'different'. He didn’t make the same choices as those around him. From God's account of the conditions that existed around him, there was no one else outside of his own family who truly trusted God. 

And so, dear brothers and sisters, I plead with you to give your bodies to God because of all he has done for you. Let them be a living and holy sacrifice—the kind he will find acceptable. This is truly the way to worship him. Don’t copy the behavior and customs of this world, but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think. Then you will learn to know God’s will for you, which is good and pleasing and perfect. (Romans 12:1-2) 

We also live in a dark world, but it is not nearly as dark as at that time. We have the blessing of fellowship with other believers who can help us where Noah and his family were truly alone. If God were looking at us as he did that day, do you think we would find favor in God’s sight? If God were to build another "ark", who would he choose to build it today? Would any of us stand out as being righteous, in love with Jesus, and following in his footsteps, or are we basically the same as everybody else? Just askin...

Do I have to accept truth?

Those who accept my commandments and obey them are the ones who love me. And because they love me, my Father will love them. And I will love them and reveal myself to each of them. (John 14:21)

Before obedience comes acceptance - we have to accept the commandments of God and then apply ourselves to obeying them. Do we have to understand all the commandments of God before we can apply them to our lives? We can acknowledge that there are some we may not fully 'understand' but we are intent on keeping because God tells us to live within their boundaries. We have to welcome his commandments, though. The more we find ways to twist or resist them, the harder it will be for us to draw near to him. Why? The twisting and resisting reveals we are really not intent on developing the relationship!

When we accept the commandments of God, we are really showing that we are willing to undertake the responsibility to live within those commandments. Did you really hear that? The element of responsibility is ours - the following of God's commandments requires us to take responsibility for our actions and to submit them to his leadership. We can SAY we love Jesus all we want, but if our actions show we are taking life's matters into our own hands and repeatedly doing things our own way, we are really not living in a way that reveals our love for him. 

Jesus promised the Holy Spirit to those who follow him. This life union with Christ is marked by the indwelling of the Spirit of God. The Spirit's work is to help us know his commandments, but it is also to reveal the purpose of those commandments as we 'walk them out' in our daily lives. Sometimes we think we have to understand the purpose before we can ever embrace the required actions. I don't understand love, but I certainly know the 'feelings' and 'actions' of love. If I waited to understand love fully before I ever undertook the actions of love, I'd be waiting a long, long time!

Purpose comes in doing - we hear the command, listening with the intent of acting, then we take the action. In so doing, we usually come to a place of 'seeing' the purpose associated with the action. The commandments of God are guidelines for living - boundaries established to provide safety and security in our lives. Undertake any actions within those boundaries and you will experience the goodness and graciousness of God. Undertake actions outside of those boundaries and you will likely experience something short of what God intended.

Accept God's guidance - his commandments. Acknowledge your need for these boundaries and live within them. You will soon discover the Holy Spirit begins to expand your understanding for those boundaries. Understanding doesn't always have to precede acceptance. Sometimes accepting something as wise and true is the beginning of walking a path that leads away from harm and toward good. Just sayin!