17 January 2010
Psalm 148, 149, 150; Gen. 7:1-23; Eph. 4:1-16; Mark 3:7-19

The earth is returned to its primordial state. Waters covered the face of the earth but instead of the spirit of God hovering over the face of the deep, it is an ark with the raw materials for the new creation. The first creation will be wiped as clean as a slate and re-creation will begin after the waters have abated. Noah and his family have an entire week in the ark prior to the beginning of the flood. For seven days they waited. I would love to hear the conversations among the rest of the family during that time. When the flood came, there would have been horrible death and destruction and it is hard to imagine what it would have been like in those days.

Because of what He is doing, those who have need come to Jesus. We all need Jesus, for some it is simply more obvious. The crippled, lame, sick, blind, deaf and those with demons come to Him but the Pharisees and those whose lives look fine stay home and complain about Him. We are being saved out of a world that is going towards judgment, Jesus is inviting us into the ark where we will be safe in that day. For the last 2000 years people have been waiting for the cataclysm to come, but the fullness of time has not come. We who are inside the ark have been given the task of inviting others to come and join us.

Paul tells us how we are to wait, begging us to lead lives in keeping with our call. If the church is the ark, in order to truly evangelize we need to be the kind of place someone wants to be and the kind of people they want to be with. Paul also tells us that we aren’t simply passively waiting for the return of the Lord, He has given us ministry gifts with which to serve Him in this in-between time. What we do with our lives in this time matters and the church matters, we aren’t individual Christians, we are to be a community of believers whose gifts and talents are used to serve the Lord. The purpose of our association is to serve Him, to grow up in Him, to be supplied by Him and to built up in love.

Praise the LORD!Praise the LORD from the heavens;
praise him in the heights!
Praise him, all his angels;
praise him, all his hosts!

Praise him, sun and moon,
praise him, all you shining stars!
Praise him, you highest heavens,
and you waters above the heavens!