Reading from January 3

Alright, when I finish this - I will have 3 days of Bible wisdom packed into the span of couple hours. Word.

Reading for January 3 
Genesis 5:1-7:24 - Noah's Ark
Wow, this is heavy: I always thought God was super pissed when he flooded the world. But in Genesis 6:5-8 it says His "heart was filled with pain" because mankind, his creation, was screwing up so royally. In Genesis 1, God was so happy with his 'humans' and 'quails' and 'stinkbugs', now he says, "I am grieved that I made them." Imagine making every species on Earth, and then regretting it. That's rough. That means that mankind had gotten so rotten, God pulled the old throw-the-board-game-across-the-room move.

I feel like I was mislead. The main reason given for God destroying the world is that the earth was "full of violence" - which I imagine means people are killing eachother.  I could be wrong, but I thought I was taught it was because people were being 'naughty' (homosexuality, false idols, etc). And I always thought - "hey, God - that's a little bit harsh for people choosing another God." But now its clear - he destroyed the world before it destroyed  itself. But all the while it pained Him greatly.

I feel like this shows us, more plainly than any other verse, how God feels when we turn away from Him, or sin. Not the part where he destroys the world, I believe Jesus died so he would never have to make such a difficult choice again. But that powerful emotion of sincere regret is something I think we've all experienced. Almost as if he was saying "it wasn't supposed to be like this..."


Matthew 3:7-4:11
There is a nice juxtaposition here - after Jesus gets baptized, a voice from Heaven said "this is my Son, with whom I am pleased."
Pleased!

God was so disappointed with his humans in Genesis, but now he is happy and proud of His son. I wonder if God was worried that Jesus would turn his back on him too? It was tragic enough knowing he was being brought to life, only to be slaughtered.

Psalm 3:1-8
"He answers me from His holy hill."


Proverbs 1:10-19
Nothing of note here.

Alright! Three days down. I figure if I can't catch up, I'll just continue along a few days behind. The key here is not to get frustrated and give up. The gobs of free time certainly helped today...hopefully I can continue this for the whole year.

Oh! I wanted to end each blog with a prayer. Since I did three in one sitting - I'll bust out a prayer here.

Dear God. Thank you for the motivation to begin this journey through your word. I'm happy with how excited I am so far, and I thank you for giving me that excitement. I pray that it will continue throughout the year and I will be able to finish my goal. I pray that this process opens my eyes to you in a new way and that through reading your word, I will allow it to become an authority in my life - that the process of reading every day would give me new wisdom and insight in ways to live as if for You.

I pray all these things in Jesus name, Amen.