Week 2 January 2025, Devotion Part 2

Enoch walked with God; and he was not, for God took him.  Genesis 5:24

The genealogy in Genesis 5 covers ten ancestors and the span between Eden and the Flood. After Adam comes Seth, Enosh, Kenan, Mahalalel, Jared, then Enoch who fathered Methuselah. The latter became the all-time longevity champion, but died just the same at age 969. He went down in history, while Enoch went up to heaven. Two other things set him apart in the litany of the begats. He became a father at 65 and began to walk with God at this time. Did the wonder of his little boy trigger inborn memories of Eden and cause Enoch to begin living up to his name? In Hebrew it means initiated and its word origin encompasses initiate, discipline, narrow, dedicate, train up. 

For thirty-three years Jesus walked on this earth in unbroken, obedient communion with His beloved Father. He broke the power of death and opened paradise for us as He did for the penitent thief on the cross. In awe and wonder the Apostle writes in 1John 2:6 that we who love God “ought to walk in the same way in which he walked.”  Part 2 of 2

Comment: The history buff is at war with the simpleminded senior in me.  When the latter is asked to what she attributes her long life, she quotes the octogenarian who smugly said, “Right turns only!”  But now you and I are still left to wonder why the lifespan of humans decreased dramatically after the flood.  Adam and Eve were created perfect, and their original environment didn’t breed dysfunction and disease.  Over time, sin began to corrupt the human genetic code. Genesis 6:5-7 records that in Noah’s day humankind had become so wicked that every inclination of their hearts was to do evil. It so grieved and angered God that He sent the flood to destroy it. Noah and his family were the only survivors. His three sons and their wives were to repopulate earth with the new breed of humanity derived from the blood line of Seth.  He was born to Adam and Eve to replace the God-fearing Abel, who had been killed by his brother.  Cain’s descendants perished in the flood.  Genesis 6:3 quotes the Lord as saying, “My Spirit will not contend with humans forever, for they are mortal; their days will be a hundred and twenty years.”  That was Moses’ age when he died,  After him, only one person is recorded as having passed that life span.  2 Chronicles 24:15 reads:  “Now Jehoiada was old and full of years, and he died at the age of a hundred and thirty.  He was buried with the kings in the City of David, because of the good he had done in Israel for God and his temple.”  Jehoiada’s name means “God knows.” As a highly influential priest he denounced Baal worship, stressed Yahweh’s Covenant relationship with Israel, and fiercely charged his contemporaries to be and act like true “people of God.” Are you as glad as I am that His only begotten Son came to earth to pioneer and perfect our faith as God’s redeemed sinners?  Jesus, in the Person of the Holy Spirit, is faithfully present with us every moment of our days that are numbered in His Book of Life. On the day our earthly walk with Him ends and “we are not,” we will  join in heaven’s magnificent worship and blend in beautifully with our special ancestors. We met them in the Bible’s first genealogy and may have shrugged them off at first!  Genesis 5