I love God's "Let"s!

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Like many, I've started again the reading the Bible through for this 2012 year we've just entered. Dare we enter without it! We need the commandments, we need the warnings, we need to be equipped, directed, empowered; we need the convicting, the rebuking, the reproving; we need the reminders, the refreshing, the renewing, the refueling............... And, we need all of the other things that the wonder of God's Word does!


So.... I'm both in the Old and the New. A little bit here, a little bit there... They both have so many riches yet to unfold!


In my dig, shall I begin to share some of the riches I find while I glean through those fields? Just little snippets.... (unless, of course, I can't catch where my thoughts want to run and they quickly run away with me before I've controlled them). It's always so good. I can't wait! Let's go!


I'll start in Genesis chapters 1-5


* Genesis 1 ~ God said, "Let"...

• "And God said, "Let.....," and there was....." 1:3
• "And God said, "Let....." ..... And it was so." 1:6-7
• "And God said, "Let....." And it was so." 1:9
• "And God said, "Let....." And it was so." 1:11
• "And God said, "Let....." And it was so." 1:14-15
• "And God said, "Let....." So God created..." 1:20-21
• "And God said, "Let....." And it was so." 1:24
• "Then God said, "Let...." So God created..." 1:26-27

I love God's "let"s! I love that "there was" and "it was so" after He's let it! I don't know about you, but I do know about most, I think we all have a few "lets" that we'd like for God to "let" so that there'd be... and it'd be so! He just says.... and it is! Who, but God, can do such! There's no other like Him! I've fallen in love with His saying! Every Word of His has meaning! Has purpose!  He sends it forth for a reason! Every Word spoken does its work! It does exactly as He's told it!

* Genesis 1-3 ~ Has more saying... And then the enemy (by saying) attempts to twist (cast doubt upon) what God's said.

Following all of those above, God says in verses 28 and 29. He "commanded" in 2:16 the man that He'd made not to eat from only the one tree in the garden, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. God says again in 2:17, saying that it's not good for a man to be alone, He says that He'll make him a helper.

We hear the man say in 2:23 concerning the woman that God has made him. And then, the next sayer we hear saying of is in verse 1 of the 3rd chapter. It's the serpent that's "more crafty" than any of the other wild animals. He says, "Did God really say?".......................! And then he and the woman discuss for a few minutes on whether God said or He didn't and what it was that He'd said when He did. Woo.... do we ever get caught in that trap doing the same?

We look to see what God's said... and sometimes we don't. Yet often when we do, it doesn't take much to make us question His saying. What is that? Even after it was said in such a powerful and profound way that there was no doubt in our minds of His saying so because in the moment our mind was blown away by our hearing Him. Even after God confirms what He's said in His Word after He's said it. And again, everywhere our eyes turn He purposefully confirms it over and over again and again. Even after all that, it doesn't take much to make us question what we've heard. No wonder He hates it so when we doubt Him (James 1:5-8)!

* Genesis 3 ~ Questions: Where are ya? What'd ya do?

Adam and Eve "hid" from God after they sinned. And God did what God does, He went to find 'em. Just as Jesus tells of the Shepherd leaving the 99 to look for the 1 after it's wandered (Matt 18:12-14; Luke 15:3-7). We have the same God today as yesterday. And He'll continue to be that same One that will also search for us tomorrow when we hide from Him again! 

It doesn't matter where we are and what we've done, His desire is to rescue and to save us! And just as He covered Adam and Eve in their nakedness in coats from something sacrificed, He covers us in our nakedness of sin with the blood sacrifice of His Son.

The woman said in 3:13 that, "The serpent deceived me, and I ____." 

What did she do? She ate. But you fill in your blank. What would yours have said? Then, because of each one's sin, Adam and Eve and the serpent, all had consequences because they'd done it. Wildly, we're often still deceived into thinking we won't be! We do the sin.... and we hide it.... and we think, for some reason we think that we won't get caught. How stupid of us (forgive me for using the "s" word!)! God warns us, "be sure your sin will find you out" (Num 32:23). Sin has its way of telling on you so that you'll be found! And sin costs! It's never free. Thankfully Christ has paid that price for you and for me!

* Genesis 4 ~ What are you so mad about? Fix your face or you'll lose it!

Well, if anyone knows me much at all, you know that this chapter is forever hounding me! I can't tell you how often I hear God say, Why are you angry? Fix that face of yours, that's not a good look! He asked Adam in his mad, what he was mad about. Then He asked, "Why is your face downcast?" Listen to Him when He asks that! It's a really big question! He's asking you for the reason your face looks like that? And the answer lies in the whatever it is that your face is looking at! In other words, He's telling you to fix your face! Basically, "fix" it on His. Because if you don't, you're going to lose control of it and your actions! It's a huge lesson for me! Stick around much and you'll see that I tend to blog on the subject a lot!

Adam doesn't fix his face... nor his look. He stays angry. So the sin that he was warned about that was crouching at his door desiring to control him,... did! He went out and killed his brother. Adam's enemy wasn't against flesh and blood, but against something inside him much darker that begged for control... and got it (Eph 6:10-18)!

Goodness... I'm truly trying hard! My thoughts (there are so much!) are truly wanting to run, as I knew they would be! These fields are so rich, there's so much to say about each morsel of it! I know you may think I'm being long-winded and saying a lot..... but you owe me more credit than you realize you do! I'm biting my tongue so hard that I'm bleeding!


Back to Genesis 4. Cain kills his brother, right? And then years later a descendant of his, Lamech, kills a man too. Lamech says (4:23), "I have killed a man for wounding me, a young man for injuring me." Woe! Tough stuff! Real stuff! Too often really happening still today stuff! Tell me though, who's never been wounded by another somebody else? Who's never truly been hurt (injured) by another? Wound, in this verse... it means, to wound by bruising... in other words, causing one to bleed. Injure... its meaning is: to hurt, to wound, to bruise, to leave a mark from strokes on the skin. Ow! How many times have we had such wounding, such bruising, such bleeding, marks... scars left from another's striking (even if only on the inside)? And yet we never have reason to kill, to slay, to destroy them! What right (even in their wounding) do we have to wound that person back? To talk about? To dog? To curse? To slay? To slander? We don't! Perhaps that's why we're told in 1 Peter 3:9 to bless them instead of retaliating or paying them back for whatever evil it is that they've done to us. We're told to love them! To pray for them. To forgive them. To turn the other cheek. Kill somebody.... and watch out, their blood cries out from the ground and tells the Creator that created it. Simply wound somebody and leave them still breathing.... they're apt to "cry out" and tell on you too! Either way, we're in trouble! Vengeance is God's.... Let's leave Him to it! If not, He'll not be after them, but He'll be after us!


Genesis 5 ~ Not Calgon, no! But, Lord, take me away!


We barely have any information at all about Enoch (you can find him in verses 21-24), but what a man he must have been! "Enoch walked with God 300 years.... Enoch walked with God; then he was no more, because God took him away." Hebrews 11:4 puts it this way, "By faith Enoch was taken from this life, so that he did not experience death; he could not be found, because God had taken him away. For before he was taken, he was commended as one who pleased God. " Wow, what was that "walk" like? Oh Enoch, I wish you had a phone so I could call to talk to you about it! I'm sure I'd awe in amazement at the stories you'd tell!


Oh Lord, thank You for the adventure today! Thanks for carrying me away! I love Your Word! I love Your Book! I love its Truths! I love the places it shows of and takes me! Oh, at what Heaven must be! Oh, at all that awaits us! Oh,...... and let's not forget the "let"s! Lord, I look to You! I believe in You! And I'm looking for more of them! More of Your "let"s that have yet to be!


"Let"s. Shall we? Lets!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Let's live more in Your "let"s in this 2012 year You've laid before us!
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