Author: imikemedia

THINK CAREFULLY ABOUT the following question please:

Is there ever a time—in all of the Bible—when God restricted salvation—to just ONE location?

Let’s explore this together with an open mind and open Bible (cf. Acts 17:11).

Please read the following texts and then answer the questions listed below.

READ Genesis chapters 6-7:

• WHAT did God promise He was going to do to the earth? 6:7, 13, 17

• WHY did God say He was going to do this? 6:5, 11-13

• WHAT did God tell Noah to do? (Be specific).  6:14-22

• WHY was the ark even necessary in the first place? 6:17; 7:7

• WHERE did God command Noah and his family to go? 7:1, 7

• WHAT happened to all human life that was not in the ark? 7:21-23; 2 Pet. 2:5; 3:5-6

• WHAT happened to all human life that was in the ark? 7:23; 1 Pet. 3:20; cf. Eph. 1:3

• WHAT IF someone had watched the aged patriarch (7:6) and his family as they constructed the ark and this individual had asked, “Noah, do you think you and your family are the only ones who are going to be saved on the earth?”, WHAT would/could Noah have said?

• WOULD it have been arrogant for Noah to tell his neighbor that salvation was restricted to just one place (i.e., inside the ark–2 Pet. 2:5)? Would it have been wrong or unloving for Noah to tell his neighbor that “God told me that salvation was found only in the ark?”  (Explain your answer).

• If it was neither arrogant, wrong, nor unloving, for Noah to tell a neighbor that salvation was restricted to just one place (i.e., the ark) back before the Flood, would it be arrogant, wrong, or unloving for a Christian to say that “God tells us through His Word that salvation is found only in one place (i.e., the church) today? 1 Tim. 3:15; Mat. 16:13-18; Acts 2:47; Eph. 1:22-23; 4:4; Col. 1:18

JESUS’ ENTIRE MISSION was about service to his Father in heaven, service to his mission, service to his followers, and, ultimately, service to those he came to save.  (C. Gene Wilkes, Jesus on Leadership, 110).

“For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many” (Mark 10:45).  

“WHEN I TALK to daughters about their fathers, the conversations are almost always emotionally charged.

They adore their fathers or hate them–sometimes they do both simultaneously.

Your daughter yearns to secure your love, and throughout her life she’ll need you to prove it.

A daughter identifies easily with her mother, but you are a mystery to her.

You are her first love, so the early years of your relationship with her are crucial.

The love you give her is her starting point.

You have other loves in your life, but she doesn’t.

Every man who enters her life will be compared to you; every relationship she has with a man will be filtered through her relationship with you.

If you have a good relationship, she will chose boyfriends who will treat her well.

If she sees you as open and warm, she’ll be confident with other men.

If you are cold and unaffectionate, she’ll find it hard to express love in a healthy way.

When your daughter was born, oxygen was forced into her lungs so she could breathe.

So too must love be pressed into her being if she is to grow into an emotionally sound woman.  Guest Editorialist

Meg Meeker, “You Are Her First Love,” Strong Fathers, Strong Daughters, 49-50)

“As a father shows compassion to his children, so the Lord shows compassion to those who fear him.”  Psalm 103:13 ESV

IN 1799, CONRAD Reed discovered a seventeen-pound rock while fishing in Little Meadow Creek.

Not knowing what it was made of, his family used it as a doorstop for three years.

In 1802, his father, John Reed, took it to a jeweler who identified it as a lump of gold worth about $3,600.

That lump of gold, which was used as a doorstop for three years in North Carolina, is one of the biggest gold nuggets ever found east of the Rockies.

THOUGHT:  Until its composition was determined, its value was unknown. Even so, until the composition of our faith is determined, its strength is unknown. God allows trials in our lives, not to hurt us, but too strengthen and prove us.

Source:  Ministry 127

“That the genuineness of your faith, being much more precious than gold that perishes, though it is tested by fire, may be found to praise, honor, and glory at the revelation of Jesus Christ.”  1 Pet. 1:7

“OUR ETERNITY IS more important than anything that can happen in the few short decades we spend in this life.  No matter how much suffering takes place now, it is far more critical to settle where we will be once that suffering ends”

Jim Davis, “Why Doesn’t God Do Something?” Why Me?  A Godly View of Suffering, Leafwood Publishers, p. 101

^{17 “}For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, is working for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory, ¹⁸ while we do not look at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen. For the things which are seen are temporary, but the things which are not seen are eternal” (2 Cor. 4:17-18).