Wednesday, January 4, 2017

LEAVE THE BOAT - Genesis 8 & 9


15 Then God said to Noah, 16 “LEAVE THE BOAT, all of you—you and your wife, and your sons and their wives. 17 RELEASE all THE ANIMALS—the birds, the livestock, and the small animals that scurry along the ground—SO THEY CAN BE FRUITFUL AND MULTIPLY throughout the earth.” 18 So Noah, his wife, and his sons and their wives left the boat. 19 And all of the large and small animals and birds CAME OUT OF THE BOAT, PAIR BY PAIR. 20 Then Noah built an altar to the Lord, and there he sacrificed as burnt offerings the animals and birds that had been approved for that purpose. 21 AND THE LORD WAS PLEASED with the aroma of the sacrifice…
9:1 Then God blessed Noah and his sons and told them, “Be fruitful and multiply. Fill the earth.”


There’s a time for everything in life! First a time of leaving the things of this world, and enter in communion with THE LORD, mean business with HIM, and we get saved! Praise GOD! After this, we start coming to church to be trained in how to live this life as Christ Ambassadors; depending on our hunger for God and our dedication to HIM, we’ll all go to train, the intensity of this training might last more or less time. As we go into that training, our lives will be transformed.

For Noah, the time to enter the boat past, then it was a time of seclusion, a time of instruction, and this is the period Noah was coming out of; though it must have been a difficult time! But it past too! And After 150 days, exactly five months from the time the flood began, I’m sure he was ready to release some of that pressure, ready to let “fresh air” come in. But it wasn’t the time yet, and After another two and a half months, the waters continued to go down. Probably he thought, “it’s been long time, LORD, are we there yet?” I can imagine his face, when the time kept passing by, day after day, in fact, After another forty days past, and then Noah released a raven first, and a dove second, to see if they would found a place to rest. Can you imagine Noah’s face every time they kept returning to the boat? It must have been disheartening! Then After waiting another seven days, Noah released the dove again… but the earth wasn’t quite ready yet. Then he waited another seven days and then released the dove again. This time it did not come back. Genesis 8:13b-14 says “ten and a half months after the flood began, the floodwaters had almost dried up from the earth… Two more months went by, and at last the earth was dry!

Can you believe it? More than twelve months, this man, Noah, was in training! I’m sure the training was for the entire family as well, because as we live together, we all get affected by the other ones are going thru.

Sometimes we THINK we are ready to go and conquer the world, in our jobs, school, place of employment and even in ministry. How many times, you’ve heard your teenager say after a time of discipline that they want to grow up, to be out of the house?  And you end up telling them, “enjoy the ride now, because when you grow up, you’ll be on your own and then things will be REALLY difficult!”

Can I tell you, that just like with Noah, GOD makes no mistakes! HE KNOWS when we are not ready, and HE WILL NOT release us until the perfect and appointed time to do so is completed. But then, as time had passed, the time to LEAVE the boat, finally arrived! GRADUATION time!!!

The CHARGE GIVEN at the “graduation ceremony”, was simple:

·        LEAVE the BOAT

·        RELEASE all the ANIMALS

·        BE FRUITFUL and MULTIPLY

There’s a time for everything in life! Patiently endure the time you’re in now, for the time will come for our release, it will be a celebration time, graduation time, and it will come with a charge. Buckle up, learn what you can when you can, at the same time you enjoy the ride. Because there’s work to do in the Kingdom of God, and that’s what we are being trained for. Did you notice? We are told twice here (Gen 8:17, 9:1) that we ought to go, the second one is a confirmation of the first one; it’s about sharing what we’ve learned, so we can multiply. That’s not too hard to understand, that’s what we teach our kids so, they grow up, and when they get old, they can teach their own kids.  And after we instructed them, thru elementary, middle and high school, graduation comes and that’s the time you often hear people say, “Go make Papa proud!” It’s like “it’s over. Now you’re on your own!” Why? Because the time of your released to do what you’ve been trained had come. So, go!!!

Well, with us and our Heavenly Father, will be the same, I can hear HIM as He says to me “go make Papa proud!”  And when we make our Heavenly Father proud, THE LORD will bless us, just like HE blessed Noah; IF like Noah, we value and endure the instruction, seclusion, and training time; even if like him, we ask several times “are we there yet?”

I MUST make clear that Graduation time DOES NOT MEAN that you’ll LEAVE the Father’s way; ABSOLUTELY NOT!!! We must NEVER leave God!!!

It means that now that you’ve become a DISCIPLE of God, a learner of GOD’s word, you’ve graduated it, to start training other disciples. THIS IS CARREER!!! A life-long process, that we will all go thru until we graduate to heaven (die).

I’m praying for us, looking forward to our High School/College GRADUATION day, when we’ll be released to do what GOD has called us to do.  Because HIS timing as well as everything HE does IS perfect!

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