Vows & Covenants

Genesis 9:9-17

“Behold, I establish my covenant with you and your offspring after you, and with the livestock, and every beast of the earth with you, as many as came out of the ark; it is for every beast of the earth.  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.”

How important is a covenant to you?   Before you answer, may I ask one more question, how important is a covenant to those of us who go by the name of Jesus Christ?  Maybe we should define covenant before we try to answer the questions above.  Covenant: an agreement.

• Theology an agreement that brings about a relationship of commitment between God and his people. The Jewish faith is based on the biblical covenants made with Abraham, Moses, and David.  We also have an Old Covenant Christian Theology, the covenant between God and Israel in the Old Testament, and the New Covenant Christian Theology, the covenant between God and the followers of Jesus Christ.

It has been rightly stated that our God is a Covenant God, and yet Isaiah 24:5, tells us that we as a people are transgressors of the laws, and have violated the statutes, and broken the everlasting covenant with our God.  I am so thankful that God is merciful and good, and He has stated; “For the mountains may depart and the hills be removed, but my steadfast love shall not depart from you, and my covenant of peace shall not be removed,” says the Lord, who has compassion on you.”  That was the Old Covenant, but Jesus the Christ ushered in a New Covenant, it was the Covenant of His broken body and the pouring out of His blood, it was the requirement of a holy God so that He might see the blood of His precious Son and forgive our sins.  We have sinned, we have all broken vows, we are not Covenant keepers, we are Covenant breakers; King Solomon the wisest of men states in Ecclesiastes 5:4, “When you vow a vow to God, do not delay paying it, for he has no pleasure in fools.  Pay what you vow.”

Dear Father, often I’ve been a fool, I have broken your commands, I made vows to you and have not followed through, I have been a promise breaker and not a promise keeper, and I’ve brought shame on your holy name.  Although, covered by the blood of Jesus, my actions have caused your Holy Spirit to grieve, my sins have broken our fellowship, and the cry of my heart is for your forgiveness, the return of our fellowship.

From the Back Porch,

Bob Rice

The spirit we had in the Storm

Genesis 9:1-7

How important is a blessing?  Anyone who studies the Old Testament has seen the evidence of a fathers blessing on his son, and yet it seems that our generation has many sons and daughters who search endlessly for what only their father’s can bestow on them.  That was not truth with Noah and his sons, Genesis 9:1-4, “And God blessed Noah and his sons and said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth.  The fear of you and the dread of you shall be upon every beast of the earth and upon every bird of the heavens, upon everything that creeps on the ground and all the fish of the sea.  Into your hands they are delivered.  Every moving thing that lives shall be food for you.  And as I gave you the green plants, I give you everything.  But you shall not eat flesh with its life, that is, its blood.”

Often I miss the important, looking for deeper truth when studying the Scriptures, I believe that I missed this part of Noah and his sons blessing.  The blessing is you’re in charge of the whole show, I’m putting you in charge over the earth; you will operate as my agents with my authority.  For over a year Noah and his sons have been caregivers for the birds, the animals and the reptiles, and as dependent as those were on Noah and his sons, much more so was Noah and his sons dependent on Creator God, who told Noah to build the ark and shut them in it. 

When you’re in the middle of a storm, and your not sure of the magnitude or the duration of the storm, it is easy to relate to Noah and his sons.  They were not in charge, God had locked them in the ark, and God had given them a task, to feed and care for the cargo He had entrusted to them.  But now God had blessed them, they were out of the storm, they were on dry land and the land was to be cultivated, grapes were to be grown and they were ordered to be fruitful and multiply, both man and animal, birds and reptiles.

But God gave them the authority to kill and eat whatever animal they found good for food; I understand that PETA “People for the Ethical treatment of Animals” have never looked beyond their feelings, but Creator God said it is ok to kill and eat any and all the animals.  So when PETA made the statement, “Animals are not ours to eat,” it’s based on their opinion and not on the Bible; Genesis 9:3, “Every moving thing that lives shall be food for you. And as I give the green plants, I give you everything.”

The problem with being put in charge is that, at best we are only managers of whatever scope God has entrusted to us.  But being out of the storm, and out of the boat with our feet on dry land is always dangerous.  Our flesh seems to get an independent spirit about it, and soon forgets the Creator who blessed us and gave us the authority to be the rulers of His world.  It is so important for each of us to keep the same spirit we had in the boat, in the middle of the storm, total dependence on our Creator.

From the Back Porch,

Bob Rice

Theories we accept as Truth

Genesis 8:20-22

Jan and I have just returned from a mission trip and vacation to Costa Rica, and part of the vacation took us to Tortuguero, it is a rain forest and you travel everywhere on the canals.  One of our guides was a man named Thomas, and he came across as someone who knew a lot and he was good at telling us all he knew, that is what a guide is suppose to do on the area he is guiding you through, but Thomas went a little too far in his comments.  His views became not opinion but were stated as facts, he told us how things developed, how the different kinds of living organisms developed and diversified from earlier forms during the history of the earth.  Thomas kicked around millions and billions of years as if his opinions were founded in facts and not in theory, but it’s not just Thomas that takes such liberties, so does the History channel, and the News papers, the T.V. talking heads, all of them, even our Government gives us information that is at best, some persons theory and not based on truth or facts.

What if you grew up sitting in front of the T.V. and the History channel, what if Thomas is your dad or uncle, what if the Church is silent and does not challenge these opinions that are at best man’s theories, what happens to that generation of young people?  They believe what they are told, it’s that simple, they have no reason to not believe what has been spoon feed to them almost from the time of birth; they become agnostic in their belief system because that is all they have been given.

Noah got out of the ark and built an altar to the Lord, and he offered the best of the clean animals as an offering to God on the altar.  Genesis 8:21,22, “And when the Lord smelled the pleasing aroma, the Lord said in his heart, “I will never again curse the ground because of man, for the intention of man’s heart is evil from his youth.  Neither will I ever again strike down every living creature as I have done.  While the earth remains, seed-time and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night, shall not cease.”

One day Thomas and I were walking ahead of the group, and I said, “Thomas, our great Creator Jesus Christ, sure did good,” and Thomas replied, I still believe in him even after all my studies.  It was not the place or time to challenge Thomas’s belief system, but what if Thomas had this information taken from Genesis 1:24,25, “And God said, “Let the earth bring forth living creatures according to their kinds – livestock and creeping things and beast of the earth according to their kinds.”  And it was so.  And God made the beasts of the earth according to their kinds and the livestock according to their kinds, and everything that creeps on the ground according to its kind.   And God saw that it was good.”

How much of man’s theories have you accepted as truth?

From the Back Porch,

Bob Rice

Looking Forward to something New

Genesis 8:6-19

Many of my friends have unbelievable memories of events that happened in our childhood, they remember people, places, and things that have long left or been deleted from my storage area called the brain.  But there is one memory that comes from when I was four years old that is as clear as if it happened yesterday.  I was about two when we arrived at 3738 Liberty Dr. in Corpus Christi, Texas, it was the first and only house dad would buy, it set at the end of the street on a small circle; today we would call it a cul-de-sac.  It was not much by today’s standard; it was 900 sq. feet, made out of wood, with a slate roof, slate must have been cheap, it was in 1944, and we were still in WW II. 

On that circle, across from our house, was the home of Tommy Black and his mother, Tommy was my best friend in the whole world, in fact my world consisted of the circle with two mesquite trees, my yard, Tommy’s yard and the very large black dirt field that lay behind Tommy’s house.  At the age of four I do recall that my brother, Fred went to school and that was ok, my sister was still home with me, though I was really too busy with Tommy and the circle to spent much time with her.  At the age of five my sister also went to school and Tommy and his mother were talking about moving, and my little world was in crisis.  All I could think of was reaching six, going to school with my brother and sister, and then my life would be wonderful.

You may be wondering how that little recall of my childhood ties to Genesis 8:6-19?  Can you imagine the anticipation of Noah while he was building the ark?  He was looking forward to something new, something he had never experienced, and so was the little boy who lived on the circle of Liberty drive.  One of the lessons that time has taught me is that expectation may not always the utopia I had envisioned.  Is it not just like God to forget to inform Noah how long he and his family will be living in the ark?  Genesis 7:11 tells us Noah was 600 years 2 months and 17 days old when God closed the door of the ark, and Genesis 8:14, Noah is now 601 years old and it is the second month and the twenty-seventh day and God tells Noah to leave the ark.  I’m not sure how many days they were in the ark, but it was at least one year and ten days. 

I bet Noah and I had this in common; he could hardly wait for the ark to be finished and I was not sure that first grade would ever arrive.  But Noah had something going for him, he knew God had put him into the ark; he also knew God was a promise keeper.  I on the other hand got to first grade, and from the first day, I missed my freedom, school was all about rules, and homework, structure, and I was not sure I would ever escape. Noah believed God and was blessed, I fought the system and came away with great loss in my education and unfulfilled blessings that my teachers desired for me.

Form the Back Porch,

Bob Rice

The answer to Noah's lost Ark?

Genesis 8:1-4

Many writers, pastors, and theologians have stated, that in each person is a God shaped void, which only God can fill.  After 67 years of life on planet earth, it has become clear that mankind is in a search for something to place hope in, and often it is empty as putting faith in oneself.  Jesus has spoken on how foolish we are to place faith in what we can do; in Matthew’s gospel verse 6:27, “Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life?”  But that does not seem to keep us from looking to fill that void with family, friends, stuff, careers, religion, sports, or anything but the Spirit of the living God.

That brings me to Genesis 8:4, where is the mountain of Ararat? “The Mountain of Ararat is the place named in the Book of Genesis where Noah's ark came to rest after the great flood (Genesis 8:4). Abrahamic tradition associates the mountains of Ararat with Mount Ararat in present-day Turkey. Mount Ararat was, for many centuries, part of the Armenian states, it eventually fell into the hands of the Ottoman Empire and later the Persian Empire (Iran).” Wikipedia encyclopedia 

Why has God given us the general location of the Ark, and yet to this date no one but Noah, his family and the ones that perished in the flood have seen or touched it?  Many have looked, many have reported seeing it, but to my knowledge, no one has proof that can be used in a court of law that it was ever built.  Do you ever ask God questions, like, “God, why not prove to the unbelievers that the Bible’s account of the flood is true by letting us find the Ark?”  I believe that God has answered the question above in Hebrews 11:1-3, “Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.  For by it the people of old received their commendation.  By faith we understand that the universe was created by the word of God, so that what is seen was not made out of things that are visible.”?  Often we seem to forget that God is the Creator and has the total right to make the rules, and He is not looking for your approval.  Hebrews 11:6, makes this very clear; “And without faith it is impossible to please him, for whoever would draw near to God must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him.”

It seems to happen often that someone finds the image of Jesus in a tortilla, in the clouds, a piece of wood, in a pool of water, and vast numbers of people go to the site hoping to find Jesus, but like the Ark, He not to be found in that manner.  I’ve seen the picture of the tortilla image of Jesus and I must admit it would have required more faith than I have to believe that was Jesus.  Folks we do not have a clue what Jesus physical body resembled, but man has been trying to make Him fit into the mold of the Jesus they want.  Isaiah 53:2, gives this account; “For he grew up before him like a young plant, and like a root out of dry ground; he had no form or majesty that we should look at him, and no beauty that we should desire him.”

From the Back Porch,

Bob Rice

Sea Shells in West Texas

Genesis 7:17-24

My friend Kim owns a ranch in West Texas, and that is a long way from any Bay or Ocean, but as you come out of the ranch house front door and turn to your right you see a hill about hundred yards away.  One day, four of us walked to the top of that hill and began to look at the view of the ranch, when we noticed seashells all over the top of that hill.  How did sea shells get into West Texas, that is at least three hundred miles from any salt water, and yet we found all kinds of sea shells.  The Bible tells us that God destroyed the earth with water, in Genesis 7:19-20, “And the waters prevailed so mightily on the earth that all the high mountains under the whole heaven were covered.  The waters prevailed above the mountains, covering them fifteen cubits deep.”

The footnote in my Bible said a cubit was about 18 inches, which means the water was over 22 feet above the tallest mountain.  If you have ever been in the Texas hill country during a heavy rainstorm, it is amazing how fast the landscape changes.  At the bottom of the hill we live on, is a creek that is often dry, and a four-inch rain will turn it into a raging river with white caps that fill the small valley between the hills.  After we built the house I made a dam in the creek with very large rocks hoping to retain the water, but the first large rainstorm moved those large rocks as if they were small pebbles.  When you look at this account in chapter seven, it is easy to understand how the Grand Canyon and all the other wonders were shaped from the mighty hand of God.  The problem is that intelligent people try to dismiss the Bible and the flood and tell us that it took millions of years to do what God did in the 40 days that the fountains of the great deep burst forth, and the windows of the heavens were opened.  And rain fail upon the earth forty days and forty nights.  That is why we found seashells on Kim’s West Texas ranch.

From the Back Porch,

Bob Rice

Living by Design

Genesis 7:1-16

This thought came into my mind while reading verse one, it matters little what others think about me in this generation, a generation not that different from Noah’s generation.  It does matter totally how God sees me, He is not fooled by my performance, but He looks at my heart. 

On the very day that Noah and his family obeyed God and went into the ark we have this account; “In the six hundredth year of Noah’s life, in the second month, on the seventeenth day of the month, on that day all the fountains of the great deep burst forth, and the windows of the heavens were opened.  And rain fell upon the earth forty days and forty nights.” (Genesis 7:11-12)  I believe, often in the life of a believer in Jesus Christ, God has an “Ark” experience setup for you.  God does this so that your faith will be increased; God already knows what you will do in your “Ark” and often it is the only way you will know that you can trust God in those dark and stormy days and nights.  Remember it was God who shut Noah and his family in the ark.

It matters not what you are building, it may be a plane, a boat, a family, a business, a life, you need a design and that design must have a designer who understands the stresses that the design will encounter.  Verse 18, tells of the success of God’s design; “the waters increased greatly on the earth, and the ark floated on the face of the waters.”

From the Back Porch,

Bob Rice

A design is Required

Genesis 7:1-16

Can you imagine making an airplane that was designed to take off and land with a real person inside, a business associate of mine did that in his barn; while he was working on the plane, often he would comment that when it is done I will fly over to Spring, Texas and give you a ride.  I was kind, but I had no desire to fly in the first plane my associate had ever made.  I must report that to my knowledge Jim is still flying that airplane and I am still standing on the ground looking up into the sky where Jim and others like him are flying their homemade planes.

Can you put yourself in Noah’s shoes, God tells him to build an ark because a flood is coming to destroy the earth?  First question might have been what is an ark and the second is what is a flood?  We know that the Bible gives the account of Noah being a righteous man, blameless in his generation, a man who walked with God in the middle of a people who were filled with violence.  We have no account of anyone building an ark, and so Noah did what my associate Jim did he built the ark around a detailed design; the Lord God gave Noah every detail on how the ark was to be made. Then one day while Noah and the family was looking at the finished design, God spoke, “Then the Lord said to Noah, “Go into the ark, you and all your household, for I have seen that you are righteous before me in this generation.”

From the Back Porch,

Bob Rice

Let God finish the Door

Genesis 6:13-16

Noah never got smart, he never got independent of his need to obey and listen to God.   Often we the followers of Christ will listen and follow him up to the point of setting the door in our ark.  Often at that point we begin to look at the “ark” our family, our job, our bank account, our stuff, even our ministry, and with pride start believing it was our design, our skills, our project; at that point we buy into the independent spirit of self can finish the door on the ark, and the whole “ark” our family, our job, our bank account, our stuff, and our ministry gets destroyed.  Noah was faithful till the job was done.  Noah had a dependent spirit, he did not get full of pride over the “ark,” it was God’s design, and Noah never forgot that he was the tool that God used to save every living thing.

Because of Noah being dependent on God, verse 18, 19, gives this account, “But I will establish my covenant with you, and you shall come into the ark, you, your sons, and your wife, and your sons’ wives with you.  And of every living thing of all flesh, you shall bring two of every sort into the ark to keep them alive with you.”  We have a covenant God!  When you hear the word “covenant” do you think of Genesis 9:16, “Whenever the rainbow appears in the clouds, I will see it and remember the everlasting covenant between God and all living creatures of every kind on the earth.”  Or does your mind go to the last Supper of our Lord, when he said, “For this is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins.”  (Matthew 26:28).

From the Back Porch,

Bob Rice

A detailed Design

Genesis 6:11-22

In the last years of my career I was blessed to work in a small group that was supported by the resources of the Electrical Markets Division of 3M.  That groups focus was major projects and in the beginning our Vice President named it, “The Global Market Creators” only to be changed to “Design and Build,” only to be changed once more about the time I was leaving the group.  Our goal was not that different from the people who were marketing lettuce, anyone could buy the lettuce as it comes from the field, but some smart marketers came up with a salad in a bag.  It cost more, but it made your job so easy when you are preparing a salad.  Like the marketer of lettuce, we had a product to sell and our goal was to show the project engineer the value of each part of his project coming to him with all the parts in a box; by doing this it would cut cost and eliminate waste.  It worked very well if the warehouse person did his job correctly, but if he did not the wrong parts went to the wrong places and the project was a disaster.  If the warehouse person would listen and obey all went wonderful, and if he didn’t, you might say the boat or project would sink.

Most of my life I’ve enjoyed working with wood, it a joy to begin with raw wood and end up with something that you can use, something that others may value.  I’ve learned the hard way that without a design you are asking for failure.  Noah is 500+ years old and it seems as if the earth was being watered by a mist that was coming up from the land, so the question is, has Noah never seen rain on the earth, has he ever seen a boat?  The answer seems to be no to both questions.

Noah would have a considerable problem if God had not given him a detailed design, in fact, if Noah was like some who say they are Christians, but who never open the manufacturers handbook on how to live life on planet earth, there would be no story to recall.  But Noah was a man of faith, and he believed the God that he could not see; Noah was dependent on God to show him every step of building an ark.  God gave Noah the design, the materials, number of rooms and the number of decks, the pitch to keep the water from encroaching and even how to set the door, so that the door would keep the floods out of the ark.  Noah never believed it was his design, for you see Noah knew and obey the Master Designer.  Genesis 6:22, “Noah did this; he did all that God commanded him.”

From the Back Porch,

Bob Rice

One man can change History

Genesis 6:6-9

My mother and dad loved me, and wanted the best for me, and yet I chose to rebel against all the authority that was placed over me, but never in your face rebellion, that would have caused great pain to me, from my dad, no I just acted one way at home and then did what I wanted.  Those early patterns of rebellion were against God, and I knew that in my heart, but for many years that is how I lived.  Often my mind goes back to my early years, why was I like that?  It was my independent spirit, and the action of that spirit grieved the heart of God, that is the message of Genesis 6:6-7.  “And the Lord was sorry that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him to his heart.  So the Lord said, “I will blot out man whom I have created from the face of the land, man and animals and creeping things and birds of the heavens, for I am sorry that I have made them.”

While vacationing in New Zealand I decided to climb a mountain by the harbor, Jan and Barb were shopping and Joe had retuned to the ship; as I was going up the path it came to an abrupt stop, I looked back at the path of rock layer that was steeply inclined and stood out from the mountain, and then I gaze ahead not knowing what to do?  Man’s best efforts of negotiating the mountains paths of life without God are always a model for failure.  God’s design for man was dependence on God in all things and in all ways, but the flesh has rebelled since sin entered into the world, by Adam’s choosing to do it his way, and that act has brought about the desire to live independently from God; that grieves the heart of God. 

If you’re the creator, and you are not happy with the end product, you have every right to annihilate the project and if you choose, to begin with a new design.  Look what the Master Designer said in Genesis 6:7;  “So the Lord said, “I will blot out man whom I have created from the face of the land, man and animals and creeping things and birds of the heavens, for I am sorry that I have made them.”  It sure looks like we have a problem, “But Noah found favor in the eyes of the Lord.”  That is what verse eight tells us, in fact verse 9 states, “These are the generations of Noah.  Noah was a righteous man, blameless in his generation.  Noah walked with God.”  One righteous man, the word righteous; “being in right standing with God” that was Noah, and his desire to depend on God, in the middle of a people who were corrupt and filled with violence, is the only thing that kept God from blotting out man.  Often I pose this question to myself; do I depend on God, are my thoughts and focus on what I have or do not have or do I desire to walk with God?  The bottom-line is; I have focus problems, my focal point is on people, things, or situations and not on Jesus.

From the Back Porch,

Bob Rice

Methuselah

Genesis 5:21-29

Methuselah was a patriarch, the grandfather of Noah, who lived for 969 years (Gen. 5:27).   The Scriptures tell us that Enoch was the father of Methuselah, that Enoch was taken by God at the age of 365 years and that he walked with God.  For many years the father of Methuselah lived an example before his son that would bring blessing and not curses.  Methuselah fathered Lamech, at the age of 187 years and he lived after that for 782 years, making him 969 years before he died.  Lamech lived 182 years and fathered a son he called Noah, and this is what he said about Noah, “Out of the ground that the Lord has cursed this one shall bring us relief from our work and from the painful toil of our hands.” 

We call what Lamech did prophecies; he was prophesying what God had placed on his heart about Noah.  It is of interest to note that Lamech the son of Methuselah, died before his father, and that Methuselah was 369 years old when Noah was born.  If we read ahead in Genesis 6, we see that Noah was 600 years old when the flood came.  This is the account in Genesis 6:11,12, “In the six hundredth year of Noah’s life, in the second month, on the seventeenth day of the month, on that day all the fountains of the great deep burst forth, and the windows of the heavens were opened.  And rain fell upon the earth forty days and forty nights.”  Genesis 5:27, Thus all the days of Methuselah were 969 years and he died.” 

Methuselah did not get into the boat, he may have died the same day as the flood or he may have died in the first month of that year, all we know is that the flood happened in that same year as his death.  This is what we know, Enoch walked with God and he did not die, because God took him, and his son Methuselah lived to see God use his great-grandson to save seven people and two of most animals from being destroyed from the earth.  I’ve read other accounts, accounts from the minds of men, men who refuse to live by faith, and it is laughable to see how they attempt to explain away the Bible.  One example is, “Some believe that Methuselah's extreme age is the result of an ancient mistranslation that converted "months" to "years", producing a more credible 969 lunar months, or 78½ years,[7] but the same calculation applied to Enoch would have him fathering Methuselah at the age of 5.”  I’m going with the Bible; it just takes too much faith for me to believe Enoch was a dad at the age of five.

From the Back Porch,

Bob Rice

Is Walking with God dangerous?

Genesis 5:6-21

My mother came from a large family, she had four sisters and four brothers, and I have friends who have large families, but nothing compared to Seth, who lived 912 years.  The Scripture states that, “When Seth had lived 105 years, he fathered Enosh.  Seth lived after he fathered Enosh 807 years and had other sons and daughters.  Thus all the days of Seth were 912 years, and he died.”  Do you think Seth had a problem remembering all the kid’s names not to mention the grandchildren and great grandchildren?  As we follow in Scripture the ancestry of Seth, we come to Jared; “When Jared had lived 162 years he fathered Enoch.” (Genesis 5:19)  This is the second time we have seen the name Enoch, the first Enoch came from the line of Cain, and the second Enoch came from the line of Seth.

The Enoch that came from Seth was 65 years when he fathered Methuselah that was a life changing time for Enoch.  Often we see men grow-up after they become parents, they see life from a different view; we do not know anything about Enoch before he fathered Methuselah, but after we have this account.  “Enoch walked with God 300 years, after he fathered Methuselah and had other sons and daughters.  Thus all the days of Enoch were 365 years.” (Genesis 5:22,23)  Enoch walked with God, and yet something seems very wrong, Enoch lived on this earth only 365 years and Enoch’s dad Jared lived 962 years and the Scriptures do not imply that Jared walked with God. 

Is walking with God dangerous?  Should there have been a warning sign printed, “Walking with God may shorten your life?”  Or does walking with God have eternal benefits?  When we look at Adam and Eve, they died in two ways, first they broke fellowship and disobeyed God and died spiritually, then they died a physical death.  All that followed them till Enoch also died physical deaths, and all men who had an earthly father also died in the same manner as Adam with the exception of Elijah, whom God also took.

Genesis 5:24, states that; “Enoch walked with God, and he was not, for God took him.”  Wow, Enoch did not die a physical death, and Hebrews 11:5, gives this account of Enoch.  “By faith Enoch was taken up so that he should not see death, and he was not found, because God had taken him.  Now before he was taken he was commended as having pleased God.”  I do not believe you are I set out to displease God, but often, we just do not understand how to please God; Hebrews 11:6 tells us how to do just that, “And without faith it is impossible to please him, for whoever would draw near to God must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him.”

From Adam you and I got an independent spirit, a spirit of the world, a spirit controlled by the enemy of our soul, a spirit that takes great pride in saying “I did it my way.”  Life is based on choice!  We only have two models, the first Adam was from the earth, a man of dust; the second man or Adam is from heaven and we call him Jesus, the Christ.  1Corinthians 15:45, “Thus it is written, “The first Adam became a living being”; the last Adam became a life-giving spirit.”  God loved you and me so much that He gave us two models, one chose to live independently from God, which brought about death, and one who chose to obey His Father, who gives life eternal to all who by faith put their hope in Him.

From the Back Porch,

Bob Rice

Reflecting

Genesis 5:3

Reflecting is the ability to look back and think deeply on the events that has or has not happened, because of our freedom to choose.  April 10, of this year my wife found me in total denial, her words to me were, “do the math” and the math said I was Sixty-seven.  So I began to reflect back on sixty-seven years of living and my many choices, some good, a few were life changing, and many that were poor, and a few that were disastrous.  Marrying Jan was one of those life changing choices, she has become my best friend, and God has used her to shape me, but the best and most life changing was the decision I made at the age of 27 in a hotel room when I ask Jesus Christ to forgive me and I entered into Christ.  As I reflect back on poor choices, one that always comes to mind is having only one child, that was an act of our will, and because of that choice, we will never understand the joy that Adam had when he saw his son Seth.

In Genesis 5:3 we have this account; “When Adam had lived 130 years, he fathered a son in his own likeness, after his image, and named him Seth.”  This made the wheels begin to turn in my brain and I went back to reread the Scriptures on Adam.  The Bible does not state the age that Adam was when God designed him, but many believe that’s because God called him a man, and that Adam was around thirty when God created him.  We do not know how long Adam and Eve lived in the Garden of Eden before they made the choice to rebel against God and only after that did they have Cain and Abel. It is also very clear that all that happened before Seth showed up on planet earth, and it happened before Adam was 130 years of age.  This is still not clear in my mind, did God begin numbering Adam’s days by his created age or by his time on earth?  My guess is his time on earth.

I never had the joy of having a son; I can only image the feeling that goes through a man’s heart when he looks at his son.   As that son grows, to see your own likeness, one that God has created to look like your image.  As a dad of the most wonderful little girl that God has ever made, I can tell you the joy of watching her turn from my baby girl into a godly lady and mother of my two grandsons and praise God she did not take my likeness.  

Many of us like the rest of the story; often God has chosen not to reveal that to us, but often I think about heaven, and I will have eternity to hear the rest of the story.  One thing the rest of the story tells us is that all of them died but Enoch, and this information we have; “The days of Adam after he fathered Seth were 800 years; and he had other sons and daughters.  Thus all the days that Adam lived were 930 years, and he died.  When Seth had lived 105 years, he fathered Enosh.  Seth lived after he fathered Enosh 807 years and had other sons and daughters.  Thus all the days of Seth were 912 years, and he died.”

From the Back Porch,

Bob Rice

Am I my brother's keeper?

Genesis 4:9

I made a living asking questions, that’s what you do in sales, and a good question is designed to derive information, not to be answered with a yes or no.  In the ninth verse God ask Cain such a question; “Then the Lord said to Cain, “Where is Abel your brother?” He said, “I do not know; am I my brother’s keeper?”  I also learned that no matter how clear the question, you do not always get a truthful answer from the customer.  Often they are busy and want you to leave, sometimes they are involved with decisions on a product and do not want to defend their actions, in fact we could write a book on why people evade questions.

“Where is Abel your brother?”  That’s a good question that requires a response and it is always wise to frame the question to get the response you want.  Why was God asking Cain this question, God is Omniscient, why was God asking a question that he already had the answer to?

Cain replied, “I do not know; am I my brother’s keeper?”  Cain was caught, the jig was up, and it was time to fess-up, but that is not what Cain the murderer did.  Cain the murderer, became Cain the liar, many years later Jesus is talking with some Pharisees who are claiming Abraham as their father, and this is His reply; “You are of your father the devil, and your will is to do your father’s desires.  He was a murderer from the beginning, and has nothing to do with the truth, because there is no truth in him.  When he lies, he speaks out of his own character, for he is a liar and the father of lies.” (John 8:44) Cain needed to confess but instead he chose to lie, he needed forgiveness but instead he challenged God with this question; “am I my brother’s keeper?” You could say Cain has the spirit of Satan controlling his actions.

How extensive is Cain’s question?  Jesus answered the question about our neighbor, they are the ones we come in contact with on any given day, but what is a brother?  I believe the Bible is clear that we are to regard all men as brothers, and those who are in Christ are our spiritual brothers, but we do have a common father in Adam, and the same Creator; Proverbs 22:2, “Rich and poor have this in common: The Lord is the Maker of them all.”  Jesus stated above that many of us have a spiritual kinship, but do we not have a blood relationship; “From one man he made every nation of men, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he determined the time set for them and the exact place where they should live.” (Acts 17:26) 

Cain had a listening problem, he knew the voice of God, but there was that other voice he was hearing, that voice was very similar to his voice, in fact it sounded just like his voice, so he did not examine it, he acted on it, and became the murderer and liar.  If only Cain would have heard God’s warning, “sin is crouching at the door.  Its desire is for you but you must rule over it.”  Satan or sin was right there talking to Cain in his own voice, and he does the same thing to you and me.

From the Back Porch,

Bob Rice

Choices

Genesis 4:8-24

How important is knowing the history of your family?  It may play an important role in our behavior but must it do that, are you and I stuck in some pattern because of the actions of parents, grandparents, or even out ancestors?  It seems to be one of those yes and no answers; because of Adam’s sin we all show-up on planet earth with a dead spirit, we all have a void in our hearts that only a relationship with Jesus Christ can fill.  Therefore, because God loved you and me so much, and because God is holy and just, He sent His only Son to redeem us.  His Son is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of His nature, and He upholds the universe by the word of power.

I have derived that mankind has the freedom to choose; we can choose to bow our knee to the only true God, or we can live life void of God and try to be gods over ourselves.  Been there, done that, I was a poor success at being god, I just could not fill that void that the true and living God had put inside of me.  Not till I turned to Jesus, the Christ.

Have you given thought to the way we brand people because of an act of foolishness, or because of skin color, or where they live, or their status in life.  We often forget that they can choose, it is clear that Cain was a murderer, he killed his own brother, but Cain’s first son was a young man named Enoch, and Enoch may have had the odds against him, but Enoch had the freedom to choose.  The Bible does not tell us about his choices.  How his sons and daughters and their children had the pattern of grandfather as an example to follow or not to follow.  How did Enoch do, was the evil act of Cain forgotten?  If we take choice out of the picture that might have been how it would have played out.  Look at Genesis 4:18, “To Enoch was born Irad, and Irad fathered Mehujael, and Mehujael fathered Methushael, and Methushael fathered Lamech.”  Lamech is five generations removed from Cain, but Lamech has a choice, and he chooses to step back pass the example of Enoch, Irad, Mehujael, and Methushael to Cain, in his heart he has chosen to believe that Cain was a cool dude.  Genesis 4:23-24, “Lamech said to his wives: “Adah and Zillah, hear my voice; you wives of Lamech, listen to what I say: I have killed a man for wounding me, a young man for striking me.  If Cain’s revenge is sevenfold, then Lamech’s is seventy-sevenfold.”  Lamech chose to be his own little god, with the power to give and take life.

From the Back Porch,

Bob Rice

The tale of two Brothers

Genesis 4:1-7

This story takes place somewhere close to the Garden of Eden, and it is about the first family, not the one in the White House, and it is centered on two sons, Cain the first born and his younger brother Abel.  Now Cain was a farmer and his brother was a keeper of sheep, and they both wanted to please God, so they each came up with an offering; Cain’s was from the ground and Abel’s was the very best of his sheep.  If we look at Genesis 4:4-7, we begin to see that God was pleased with the younger brothers actions and offering and not the older brother.  Have you ever asked “why?”  That is what God asked Cain, look at verses six and seven; “The Lord said to Cain, “Why are you angry, and why has your face fallen?  If you do well, will you not be accepted?  And if you do not do well, sin is crouching at the door.  Its desire is for you, but you must rule over it.”

Wow, it looks like both you and sin could be the subjects, and to be a subject it must be a noun or pronoun, and that necessitates it to be a person, place or thing.  Sin is not a place or thing, it is used as a person in this sentence.  I’m very poor at grammar so I ask for help on this from an English professor, and this is what she said about that second sentence; “In the second sentence, you is the subject of the dependent clause (and if you do not do well), and sin is the subject of the independent clause (sin is crouching at the door).  The predicate verb for each subject is do, do and is waiting.”  This person “sin” is waiting or crouching at the door, sin is going to do something to Cain, in fact God tells Cain that the person, “sin,”  “Its desire is for you, but you must rule over it.” 

I was the younger brother and if I’ve learned anything, it is that the older brother expects to out perform his baby brother, and yet God is pleased with Abel’s offering and not happy at all about what Cain has offered.  It is a vast understatement to say Cain is upset with God, but like so many that have followed Cain’s model, he transfers his anger to the one whom he believes has shown him up. 

Do you remember that the person “Sin” is waiting for Cain, and because God is so good, He always gives us a way out, the following is what God meant about ruling over “sin”; “He who conceals his sins does not prosper, but whoever confesses and renounces them finds mercy.”  Our Father is merciful and was waiting for Cain to agree with Him that his actions and his offering were not up to God’s standards, and to ask for forgiveness, both from God and his brother.  Cain chose to reject God’s mercy, God’s forgiveness, and Cain chose to ignore the person called “Sin” and fell into the trap that was set by the enemy of our souls.

From the Back Porch

Bob Rice

Is Work a Blessing?

Genesis 3:23

Being born in 1942 was a blessing, being born in Corpus Christi, Texas was also a blessing, and being born into a family of five, with an older brother and sister and a mother and dad was also a blessing.  Being born to parents who came out of the depression era and who had very little in the way of stuff was also a blessing.  Being born to parents who love the things of God was also a blessing, but as I reflect back on those years, one of the greatest blessings was that they taught us from the time we were children the value of work, the blessing that came from doing a job well.

Somewhere, we as a people have lost the blessing of work, but from the beginning it has been in our D & A to work, and out of that came satisfaction, the feeling of accomplishment that is ours when the day is over.  If you will go back to the beginning with me, it becomes very clear that God designed us with work in mind.  Genesis 2:15, “The Lord God took the man and put him into the Garden of Eden to work it and keep it.”  The plan from the beginning was for man to work, and after man sinned, the plan did not change.  Genesis 3:23, “therefore the Lord God sent him out from the garden of Eden to work the ground from which he was taken.”  God’s plan for man had not changed and in the book of Proverbs 14:23, “All hard work brings a profit, but mere talk leads only to poverty.”  When I think of profit my mind always equates profit to money, but that is not true, self-worth is of great profit; the value my hard work has to someone irrespective of financial value, and a great example is a stay at home mom.  She is one of the unsung heroes, her hard work often goes unnoticed, but the significance of her service to the family is of the greatest worth.

The apostle Paul tells us in the book of Ephesians 4:28, “He who has been stealing must steal no longer, but must work, doing something useful with his own hands, that he may have something to share with those in need.”  Each time I read this verse, my thoughts go to the United States Congress, but as a society we have learned to steal and no longer call it stealing.  We take what is not ours, whether that be time, or stuff, and no longer does our conscience seem to bother us.  The apostle Paul has the answer for our neighborhood, our Cities, our State, and our Nation in 1Thessalinians 4:11b-12, “But we urge you brothers, to do this more and more, and to aspire to live quietly, and to mind your own affairs, and to work with your hands, as we instructed you, so that you may live properly before outsiders and be dependent on no one.”  What is Paul urging us to do more and more, show brotherly love, and mind our own affairs, and find value in working?

From the Back Porch,

Bob Rice

Provider/Protector

Genesis 3:6-19

It is a sad day when a woman finds that her man is not what she had hoped him to be, that he is not her knight in shining armor, in fact he may not even meet her needs of support; not emotionally or financial.  God designed the man, as the provider, and the protector of his woman, and as we saw earlier that it was God’s design for the man to leave his mother and father, and to hold fast to his wife.  In the book of Colossians 3:19, “Husbands love your wives, and do not be harsh with them.”  Did you see any “if’s”?   I’ve looked, it is not in the book, God did not tell man he could refrain from loving his wife if she got old, or fat, or was not a good cook, or even if someone else came into the picture that he thought would be a better wife.  God did not give man any escape, with the exception of his wife being unfaithful to him. 

So how is Adam doing, he new at this, he is the first man to take a wife, an until the fall, Adam walked and talked with God and I just believe God gave him some great advice on how to love, because God is Love.  We have seen the account of how the devil came to Eve in the body of a serpent and began this dialog, I’ve always wondered if it went something like this; “Good morning Eve, you look great today, but then you always look great, looks like the garden is doing super, you sure are a great gardener, it would not surprise me if you got voted the best gardener of the year.  How are the fruit trees doing, O yes, that one in the center of the garden, it sure has the most beautiful fruit.”  And you know the rest of the story, because God put it in the Bible, Genesis 3:1-6.

I always thought Eve was away from Adam in the garden and Adam was busy some where else when the serpent began his conversation, but the Scripture states that Adam was standing right there.  The end of verse six states, “she took of its fruit and ate, and she also gave some to her husband who was with her, and he ate.”    Adam dropped the ball, he was right there and he did not protect his wife, in fact he accepted or allowed what happened without any active response or resistance, he was not her protector, the guy went passive.  Adam stepped out of his role as the protector, and only bad things happen when the man becomes passive.

When a man steps out of his role as the lover, warrior, provider and protector of his wife, and stands like he’s on the sidelines and allows harmful things to happen to his family; that is when bad things happen in his marriage.  When his lack of action confronts him, he will do what Adam did, it is called the blame game, and whom does he blame, the woman.  Adam, not only blamed Eve, he blamed God, because God had given him the woman.  You and I are living the rest of the story, how are you doing guys, do you have a habit of going passive on your wife, are you her protector?

From the Back Porch,

Bob Rice

Deception at it Best

Genesis 3:1-5

I have good memories of my mother and her many accomplishments, but mother was very different from most of the other mothers that we were around at school or church.  Mother and dad never drank any alcohol, and to mother ginger ale was off limits for the family, I can only imagine the reason, and my best guess is that she had seen an advertisement showing it being used with alcohol.  Mother also would not let my sister wear shorts of any kind, not even in gym class, but my brother and I could wear them in gym or playing tennis.  In many ways she was overly protective, particularly with my sister.

When we were young, up to our teens, both my brother and sister who are older seemed to obey and go by mother’s rules, even though it often made them seem strange to their friends.  But I was the baby of the family and from a young age began to learn the art of deception; I believe that is the practice of deliberately making somebody (Mother) believe things that are not true.  It began in the second grade, mother would ask the question, “Bobby do you have homework?” and my answer would be, “I did it at school.”  That lie would allow me to play till dark, and then at bedtime I would say, “I forgot, I need to turn in this paper in the morning,” and I still do not understand how this action was allowed to be repeated on a very regular basic.

Deceptive, or you might say I was a crafty little rascal; clever at achieving my desires by indirect or deceitful methods, and that puts me in good standing with none other that Satan himself.  In chapter three we have the account of Eve trying to stand toe to toe with that old ancient serpent, who is the devil and Satan, and she was totally out of her league.  “Now the serpent was more crafty than any other beast of the field that the Lord God had make.  He said to the woman, “Did God actually say, ‘you shall not eat of any tree in the garden?”  And the woman said to the serpent, “We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden, but God said, ‘You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the midst of the garden, neither shall you touch it, lest you die,’” But the serpent said to the woman, “You will not surely die.  For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”

Exaggeration is often used to make a point, and often it is used when a person feels the need to convince the other person, that is what Eve tried on the serpent, But that is not what God said, look at Genesis 2:16,17, “And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, “You may eat of every tree of the garden, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day you eat of it you shall surely die.”  I’m sure Eve is feeling a little over matched and so she adds, “neither shall you touch it.”  Eve is trying to go toe to toe with the Devil but she does not know that the serpent is the devil, and we have history to tell us she did not fare well in this match of wits.

The enemy of our soul is very crafty, he is an “Arch Deceiver,” he has no concern for “truth”, and he is a liar and the father of lies.  In Genesis 3:5, he tells Eve that God lies; in Matthew 4:6 he misuses the Scripture; in 2 Corinthians 2:11, we are warned by the apostle Paul that he has cunning plans for each of us; also we are warned that he will come to us as an angel of light, 2 Corinthians 11:14.  We must do what our Lord did when He encountered the devil, Jesus told him,  “It is written.”

From the Back Porch,

Traded Perfect - for Problems

Genesis 2:23-25

We bought 1&1/2 acres next to our house and we hired some young men who were clearing a lot down the street.  We hired them to remove rocks and boulders from our lot, so that we might use them for landscaping.  These two young men are in college, they work for their dad in the summer and on weekends; Victor is the leader, Victor has one year to go before becoming an Architect.  His brother Sam is younger and he graduated with a double major and is going back to work on his Masters; I was very impressed with these young men.  Sam told me that they did not have time for girls or parties that they still had five younger brothers and sisters to help put through school and that marriage was too important to rush into.

I shared with Sam that I was twenty-three when I married Jan and that I did not have any understanding of the covenant that I had entered into.  The thought of being responsible for myself, much less a young bride, frightened the little boy that inhabited my earthsuit; he could no longer do whatever he wanted.   I shared how fear, caused me to buy so many “bought lessons,” and those lessons came at a very high price.  Often I looked on my young bride as a problem and did not understand that I was the problem, and that she was a blessing from God. 

What happens when you go to the Mall, or what happens when you drive around looking at new houses?  The Mall exposes the wants or needs of your wardrobe, the Mall becomes a “want creator” and so does the new houses, and if you’re not in control of your “feeler” the next thing you feel is a deep need to upgrade.  In my late twenties and early thirties I played that game in my mind, I was married but I still did a lot of comparing my wife to other women, never understanding that Jan was a blessing, and that my view was distorted.  The world promises that new is better, and often after the sales job, our minds, our emotions, will tell our will to choose the new, (dress, boat, or wife) only to regret the cost or to find out that the item or the person, does not meet your needs or requirements.   

We see our society and ourselves as so advanced, but are we?  In Genesis 3:6, “So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate, and she also gave some to her husband who was with her, and he ate.”  The serpent took her to the Mall and it was there she and Adam traded perfect for pain and problems.  That is a “bought lesson” that mankind has had to live under, and we are still doing the same thing that Eve and Adam did and it destroys homes and families.  God made clear His design for marriage in Genesis 2:24, “Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.”

From the Back Porch,

Bob Rice                   http://fromourbackporch.blogspot.com/

From Dirt not Slime

Genesis 2:15-22

In 1970 Jan and I lost our home and our stuff to a lady named Celia, no one gave her much credit till after she had finished her chores of changing the landscape of the Corpus Christi area.  All our stuff was gone or destroyed and that included pictures and memories; books like my junior high annual, and because of that I’ve lost the name of a nice lady who taught me science.  She made an impact on my life!  I have no misgivings, I missed ninety percent of what she was attempting to teach, but this one thought has never left my thinking.   She told us that we were unlike any other animal because God had given us a soul, and our soul is what sets us apart from all the other things God created.  The soul is made up of the mind, the will and the emotions, and I learned much later from my friend Bill that the brain is not the mind, the brain is a hunk of meat, it is an organ, like a liver, and it is the will that takes information from the mind and the emotions and chooses what to do with that information. 

Bill and Anabel Gillham in “Life Time Guarantee” taught me the following; the mind (your “thinker”) analyzes data and makes recommendations to the will.  The emotions (your “feeler”) respond to various stimuli and exert influence on the will.  The will makes decisions.  It works like a light switch; it is either on or off.  You don’t actually “make up your mind” about anything; you make up your will.  You may be asking, so what is the big deal, look at verses 18,19, “Then the Lord God said, “It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him.  So out of the ground the Lord God formed every beast of the field and every bird of the heavens and brought then to the man to see what he would call them.  And whatever the man called every living creature, that was its name.”  Do you recall verse 7, “then the Lord God formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living creature.”  The big deal is that man and animals came from the same ground, but God placed in us a soul, and by doing that in His wisdom He gave you and me the ability to make decisions, very important ones like; will we believe in the Lord God as our Creator, or will we choose to buy into evolution and believe we came from slime, never asking the question where did the slime get its origin.

This is why the book of Genesis is of the utmost importance, it is this book of beginnings that sets the stage for what you will believe about God, and about His Holy Word, the Bible.  You cannot say I place my faith in God and His Son Jesus Christ and not accept this truth; “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” Any person, who places their faith in the god of evolution, must have great faith.  Look at the six thousand years of the history of man; is he evolving into something better?  The answer is found in the watching of the six o’clock news, mankind has more knowledge, but his heart is still evil, and without the Lord God of Genesis 1:1, he is without hope.

From the Back Porch,

Bob Rice

Time, Trees and Faith

Genesis 2:8,9,

Gardening is in my blood, I believe it goes back to my granddad and his dad, and his dad, they were men of the soil, that is how they supported their families, they grew things that others needed.  Since child-hood, I’ve enjoyed working the soil to produce vegetables and grow fruit trees; something in me gets excited when I see the seedlings breaking through the ground, or the first bloom setting on the fruit tree.  I’ve learned that if you look at the blooms or the seedlings too often, it seems like it will never produce the results that you are hoping for.

Often I’ve thought about Genesis 2:8,9, “And the Lord God planted a garden in Eden, in the east, and there he put the man whom he had formed.  And out of the ground the Lord God made to spring up every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food.  The tree of life was in the midst of the garden, and the tree of knowledge of good and evil.”  When I garden, it requires a starting place; first I spend time getting the land ready to receive seeds, or if I am planting a fruit tree, it has to have a start and that start normally comes from a nursery that grows fruit trees.  God did not begin with planting saplings, he began with trees, now you may be thinking, and big deal, but it is a very big deal!  I believe it is impossible to grasp creation without a clear understanding of time, time was designed for man, God created time for us, but time has no control on God.  God the manufacturer designed you and me to live in a three-dimensional world that requires time, but God also put into that design the ability for us three-dimensional time critters to believe what is not seen, God calls that faith.  Why do we need faith? “Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see.” (Hebrews 11:1)

God, unlike man, began with trees that He spoke into being, how old were those trees?  By our time, some may have been a thousand years old, and that does not make sense to us. Why would God do such a thing?  His desire from the beginning was to establish you into a person of faith, and faith does not get its origin in what is seen, but is based on being sure of what is unseen.  Once you take this truth by faith, then rocks and mountains and the time man has placed on them, will not make you doubt the certainty of God as Creator.

Part of our design was to work, and God knew that in work we would benefit, physically and spiritually; God also wanted you and me to enjoy life on this earth, so He made things like trees to be pleasant to our sight and good for food.  God’s purpose has always been to give you the freedom to choose, to seek what is unseen, your Creator, and to be loved and return that love.

From the Back Porch,

Bob Rice

A Garden to Work

Genesis 2:4-7

Do you ever wonder what a place looked like one hundred years ago?  At one time the King Ranch was my customer, and those I talked with would tell me that one hundred and forty-nine years earlier when Captain King came to this land it was void of bushes and the grass was as tall as the belly of a horse.  Often, I would stop on one of the Ranch roads and try to remove the abundance of mesquite trees that I was seeing, and imagine that land, as it was a hundred and forty-nine years earlier.

In Genesis 2 God is giving us a word picture of how it was before bushes; shall we take up the story in verse four, “These are the generations of the heavens and the earth when they were created, in the day that the Lord God made the earth and the heavens.  When no bush of the field was yet in the land and no small plant of the field had yet sprung up – for the Lord God had not caused it to rain on the land, and there was no man to work the ground, and a mist was going up from the land and was watering the whole face of the ground – then the Lord God formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living creature.”  At this point in creation, the earth would not have any similarity to the earth we live on.

For three years, I’ve been unemployed by choice, many call this retirement, but I prefer to say, “I’m between jobs” and the pay was much better when I was employed.  As a person who is unemployed, I find I have the desire to work, it maybe cleaning house, or doing a small project, helping a neighbor, doing the yard, but this I know at the end of the day, I need to have worked in someway to have a feeling of value.  Why, because that is how mankind was designed, God’s design for man was to work in the garden.  A very wise king once wrote in Ecclesiastes 9:10, “Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with your might, for there is no work or thought or knowledge or wisdom in Sheol, (the grave) to which you are going.”  How things have changed, many today believe that work is a dirty word, they are too good to do the yard or house work, many guys I knew in sales were looking forward to becoming the boss, so that they no longer had to do the hard work of getting and keeping sales, they were always without exception the worst people to work under.  The apostle Paul, who loved to work, gave this advice; “He who has been stealing must steal no longer, but must work, doing something useful with his own hands, that he may have something to share with those in need.” (Ephesians 4:28)  Paul is not just talking to the Congress of the United States; he is also talking to us who are “In between jobs”.

From the Back Porch,

Bob Rice

The Seventh Day

Genesis 2:1-3

I can only imagine what was going on in heaven as the heavenly beings looked on what God called man.  Can you hear the questions, what is man; I heard he has a free will, what is that?  One angel may have said to the others, it is the freedom to choose, and some other angel may have said what would they choose, God has placed them in this beautiful garden, He has given them dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.  Another angel may have injected, you know that God has blessed man, and told him to be fruitful and multiply, and God has given him every plant yielding seed that is on the earth, and every tree that has fruit for food, what’s to choose?

That is when one angel spoke up and reminded the others that before Lucifer rebelled against God they also had the ability to choose, but surely man would never rebel against God!  Why would man want to live any way but dependant on God?  Surely man knows that God has designed him for fellowship with his Creator.  That can only happen when man lives knowing that all that is good and perfect comes from the Father.  That is when an angel spoke and said, remember that one third of the angels in heaven were deceived by Lucifer, that devil, but surely man would never choose to live independent from God, surely he would not choose pain and death, over fellowship with the Father?

All of heaven is waiting and watching to see what God will do on the seventh day of creation, it has been a very busy week, so much has been done, what will God do on the seventh day of creation?  “Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them.  And on the seventh day God finished his work that he had done, and he rested on the seventh day from all his work that he had done.  So God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it God rested from all his work that he had done in creation.” 

Do you seem to never stop?  The weeks are filled with schedules that by your choice leave little time for rest, little time for God, do you live as if you have no choice, if so you are living an independent life and that is not what you were designed for.   It is so easy to live independently and believe you are in the center of God’s will.  God designed you to have fellowship with your Creator and he designed you to need a day of rest.  Do yourself a favor and stop living out of fellowship, stop living independent from the Father and honor what God honors.

From the Back Porch,

Bob Rice