Promise of God for All

The Christian Community Comes Alive
Seeds of New Growth

Thessalonica, Beroea, and Athens

Genesis 9:8-17  The Message

^8-11 Then God spoke to Noah and his sons: “I’m setting up my covenant with you including your children who will come after you, along with everything alive around you—birds, farm animals, wild animals—that came out of the ship with you. I’m setting up my covenant with you that never again will everything living be destroyed by floodwaters; no, never again will a flood destroy the Earth.”

^12-16 God continued, “This is the sign of the covenant I am making between me and you and everything living around you and everyone living after you. I’m putting my rainbow in the clouds, a sign of the covenant between me and the Earth. From now on, when I form a cloud over the Earth and the rainbow appears in the cloud, I’ll remember my covenant between me and you and everything living, that never again will floodwaters destroy all life. When the rainbow appears in the cloud, I’ll see it and remember the eternal covenant between God and everything living, every last living creature on Earth.”
¹⁷ And God said, “This is the sign of the covenant that I’ve set up between me and everything living on the Earth.”

For Reflection 

If any ever questions , "Who are God's people?  The answer is found in the story of Noah.  The covenant is binding all of humanity and all living things on earth.  God's covenant covers it all from microbes to mice, from fungus to fauna.  And yes, from atheist to theist, from Christian to Jew, men and women, straight and gay.  We all live within the covenant of God.  God lives in all living things. All of God's creation is as wonderful as the rainbow and deep with mystery. The floodwaters of life can never destroy that bond. God will always bring his creation into the sanctity of God's grace.  No one, neither the sinner nor the saint, is left behind.

Pray

for the wisdom to follow God's will.  Pray for the courage to face the mysteries of life with out fear.  Pray to accept the responsibility of God's grace and God's confidence in human kind.  Pray prayers of thanksgiving for God's universe and God's gift of life.  Thank God for the freedom to choose to live in the Kingdom of God.  Pray that all humans recognize the freedom to choose peace.