My devotional is posted below, but remember to post yours in the comments!
Message: In the beginning God created everything with beauty, purpose and intent. He literally thought of everything and spared no detail in his creativity. I could feel his joy in creating everything and even related it to my own joy while creating-right down to the realization that he went for 6 straight days before taking the day of rest. I feel a similar drive when I create and I often lack the discipline to take that rest. Everything was carefully planned right from the beginning, including our calendar being determined by the stars that he said would mark special dates and festivals. God created all of these things before he even created man, and his intent for mankind was to be with him in the Garden of Eden. Mankind had an innocence in the beginning, but that innocence was not purity as we tend to think of for that word. It was more like ignorance and because mankind is not God, we were also born with a sin nature, so that innocence/ignorance is to our destruction when we follow it. When the serpent deceived the woman by telling her that she would not die, he played on her ignorance of the spiritual world. He knew full well this was a spiritual death, but she had no idea. Her sin nature led her to the destruction of not only herself, but the rest of mankind. What really grabbed me here is the realization of God’s acknowledgement that “they are now like us” as far as their newly awakened awareness of good and evil. The problematic part about that was they had the awareness, but not the rest of the attributes of God that would keep them from running toward their destruction.
Command: Obey the commands of God whether or not I understand the reasoning behind it.
Warning: When I disobey or ignore the warnings of God, I am choosing my own destruction, and usually this carries a consequence for others as well because none of us sins at only our own expense.
Promise: When I choose to obey God I choose what he has planned for me, and his plans are full of beauty and purpose.
Application: This reminds me that no matter how much I learn or know about God, I am still born out of sin and ignorance. My sin nature will always want to take the wheel and will lean on my pride to accomplish this if I don’t stay tied to Jesus. The end of Proverbs 1 got my attention in verse 32 when it said “the complacency of fools will destroy them”. I have found a complacency in myself recently as I have walked into a season of blessing. I am in a season of gratefulness, but I can’t allow the blessings to make me complacent. There is a time to celebrate and enjoy the blessing, but it is not time to take a rest from the race. It’s my opportunity to chase Jesus even harder while I am unrestrained.
