Dear Friends of "Dial Daily Bread,"
While parts of North America bake in the sizzling dry heat of drought, other parts suffer torrential rain and dangerous flooding. Oh that the Lord would equalize our climates! (We'll probably have to wait for the new earth to see this.)
But we can see something encouraging even today: the rainbow. It's a pledge on the part of our Creator-Savior God that He will never again permit a flood to wipe out life on earth. It's a simplistic promise that appeals to a child's sense of wonder, but even our most sophisticated university scientists can wonder like a child and sense the rainbow tugging at their heart.
As we read the story in Genesis 9 we find a most curious detail: God says, "Behold, I establish My covenant ... with every living creature, ... of the fowl, of the cattle, and of every beast of the earth" (vss 8-13). Can that be true? It seems fantastic--God "making a covenant" with all the birds and animals!? Doesn't He have more important things to do than make bargains with elephants and mice and sparrows?
But wait a moment: He didn't make a "bargain" or a "contract" or a "transaction" with these dumb creatures! Yes, He did humble Himself to make a PROMISE to them, but He did not exact from the birds and beasts any promise in return. If you'll look at the fauna of the earth, they simply receive the favor at the hand of God, and go on living--enjoying the gift of life at His hand, even eating out of His hand (see Psalm 145:15, 16).
But wait a moment more: that PROMISE of God was made to you and me just as it was to the birds and beasts (Gen. 9:9). You can't be a Christian unless you humble your heart and line up with them, awaiting your turn, and eat out of His hand, too (see John 6:51-53).
That PROMISE of God to us and the creatures alike is His blessed New Covenant. Don't kid yourself into thinking that now you must reciprocate by making promises to God. You must reciprocate, yes--a million times over: but not in promising Him obedience and good works. Your job is to BELIEVE His PROMISES to you. And then, wonder of wonders, all the obedience flows from a heart where He has written His law of agape love, His ten commandments.
--Robert J. Wieland
From the "Dial Daily Bread" Archive: July 12, 2003.
Copyright © 2012 by "Dial Daily Bread."
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