16 Feb Live Life, Eat Snacks, and Die
Genesis 5:1-2 – This is the book of the generations of Adam. When God created man, he made him in the likeness of God. Male and female he created them, and he blessed them and named them Man when they were created.
I remember when I was in elementary school and our well-meaning teacher would tell us that we could change the world.
One kid in particular asked if he could be president and the teacher told him, “Well, yes of course! You can all be whatever you want, even President!” Even though I was young at the time, I knew this wasn’t true. Even if, by some miracle, everyone in my elementary school class was given the chance to be president, with four-year terms, there’s no way the rotation would make it through all of us before we died! Or if I wanted to be a power forward for an NBA team, as much as I tried, I have about a 3-inch vertical so there’s little hope for this dream.
Every generation is told that they’re special, that they’re going to be world-changers, and that they can grow up to do anything. But much like those mentioned in the genealogy Genesis 5, we will live our lives, have some snacks, have some kids, and die, which these guys mentioned did for over 1600 years.
We should do our best to live by God’s grace every day, but this ultimately takes a bit of pressure off us who puts pressure on the next generation to do better and fix things that we couldn’t fix. The world is fallen, Satan and demons are real, the curse is in effect, and death comes for us all. It’s a lot of pressure to expect someone else to straighten all that has been made crooked, and just because they are young with more time and energy does not increase their odds. That’s the big idea of the genealogy in Genesis 5.
Though God certainly has meaningful things for each of us to do, and our worship of God passed on to our children can change generations, the ultimate curse will not be broken by our generation or by our good works and we will sin like our first parents until the final return of Jesus. We can live by the power of the Holy Spirit until we get to go to Heaven and live with Jesus in perfect, resurrected bodies forever. Until Jesus returns, things won’t much change but we can focus on Him changing us in the meantime.
What meaningful things does God have for you to do, by His grace, hopefully to impact generations, in your years on this earth?
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