The Gospel in the Book of Genesis

God is infinite and all knowing, and He has planned for our Salvation from the beginning... and comforted Adam and Eve with that promise... the problem was that many of His promises are veiled prophecies that only made sense to those who came much later.
One thing that was shown me once, that blessed me, was how He showed His plan for the Salvation of man through Adam, down through the Godly lineage of Seth. If you consider the meaning of the names, they read like this:
Adam: Man
Seth: Appointed
Enos: Mortal
Cainan: Sorrowful Inheritance (An inheritance that makes you sad)
Mahalaleel: The Blessed God
Jared: Shall Come
Enoch: Teaching
Methuselah: His Death Will Bring
Lamech: Despairing
Noah: Comfort
In a sentence, Man (has been) Appointed Mortal Sorrow (for an) Inheritance. The Blessed God Shall Come Teaching. His Death Will Bring Despairing Comfort. 

The Importance of your Worldview

What exactly is a worldview?

Your worldview is a large part of your culture. (Beliefs, Customs, Norms and Values for a given group of people… essentially it is the reason why they do what they do.)

From the time you were an infant you have been trained in your cultures norms and values. You are trained to process information, interpret events, and even make choices in life that correlate with your worldview. As a result, your worldview is, literally, how you view the world. More specifically, it is like a filter that you view the world through. Because of this training, you will respond to any given event in a manner that matches your worldview. Even how you think about certain issues will match that worldview.

This is why having the right worldview is important for the Christian. We are surrounded by influences that conflict with a Christian worldview; Humanism, Hedonism, false religion… anything that teaches that man should lift himself above God, when the clear command is “Casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ…” (II Corinthians 10:5)

If we view things in the world through the world’s definitions, then they become our normal, but if we view them through God’s definitions, found in His Word… THAT is our normal.

Consider “success” and how it is viewed by the world; usually based on the attainment of wealth, position, and things of that nature. How is success viewed by God? “…whosoever will be great among you, let him be your minister; And whosoever will be chief among you, let him be your servant…” (Matthew 20:26-27) Pretty well the exact opposite.

My point is this: we must work to cultivate a Christian worldview in ourselves and our children. Consider some of the hot topics in the news of today: Marriage, Divorce, Abortion, Drugs, Homosexuality, or even Welfare. Why do we see a leaning away from Biblical principles in these areas? Simply because the people that are deciding how our society should handle these things are looking at them through the lens of a Humanist worldview.

Ask yourself, how are YOU looking at these issues? Are you looking at them through the lens of the Bible? Through a Christian worldview? Or are ignoring or excusing away the Word of God and looking at these issues like everyone else?

What are you Thanking God for Today?

Just a short thought for today: The Bible tells us that... "A faithful man shall abound with blessings..." (Proverbs 28:20)
We go through life with a secular idea of what blessings are. We are taught to think that if we are right with God, we should be 'free from financial problems' but the fact is, The Lord blesses us in an abundance of ways, the least of which is monetary. 
What we need to do is just stay faithful, and focus on everything else The Lord has done for us... Because if we are honest, it is a fairly lengthy list.
Start a list of all of the things you have to be thankful for, (and it should start with Salvation...) and you will soon see how blessed you really have been...
And if you can't fill a page, it means that you're too busy listening to the devil whisper in your ear. Swat him away, and start over. 

Faith and the Bible

“…faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.” (Hebrews 11:1)

What is faith? We need to understand that faith is not just believing blindly. It is not a blind leap into unknown territory without any assurance whatsoever... instead, it is a trust and belief that is based on the foundation of facts the God has presented. I would like to consider how God has preceded His request for our faith with Scripture.

Consider this; Paul struggled to convince others of a resurrection; why? Was it because there was no proof? Of course not; there is a massive level of proof of the resurrection of Christ. The problem is that we stop looking at evidence, and start to look at the misdirection of the world.

If you are a born again Christian, there is a reason you are a born again Christian. You decided to believe God… He told you that you were a sinner; and we have that evidence; He told us that that “…Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures; And that he was buried, and that he rose again the third day according to the scriptures…” (I Corinthians 15:3-4)

So, wait…why should I believe that?

To answer that, we must first understand the purpose of the Scriptures. Is the Bible just this book that some guy wrote? Is it a fictional account that someone imagined and cobbled together?

Let us just consider the Gospels; the reason for their existence was not just to tell us about the birth, life, death and resurrection of Christ for posterity; if that were the case, one Gospel was quite sufficient. The Gospels form the body of EVIDENCE that those things happened; historically. It is the eyewitness testimony of those who were there.

Simon Greenleaf was a professor of law, and one of the principle founders of the Harvard Law School; considered by many to be the greatest expert of evidence and testimony. After making derisive claims about Christianity, he set out to disprove the Bible by attacking the Biblical testimony concerning the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

He was certain that an exhaustive examination of the internal witness of the Gospels would dispel the central theme of Christianity; the myth that there Christ was resurrected from the dead. This is a great study, which we do not have time to fully convey in the space allotted; but suffice to say that after years of exhaustive research and analysis, after carefully weighing the evidence presented historically and in Scripture, he concluded that the witnesses were reliable, and that the resurrection did in fact happen. 

The point is this; God has asked for our faith in His Word; but he has provided the proof already that His word can be trusted. The question is, do you trust it?

“If any unbiased jury in the world considered the evidence for the resurrection of Christ, they would have to conclude that Jesus of Nazareth actually rose from the dead.”

— Simon Greenleaf

*taken from Constructing Character by Steve C. Roberts