Genesis 15:1 NASB

"After these things the word of the LORD came to Abram in a vision, saying, 'Do not fear, Abram, I am a shield to you; your reward shall be very great."

God found another man, this time a man by the name of Abram, who would later be known as Abraham.  He always looks for men and women who are affected by the call of the eternal.  These are individuals who do not give in to the voices around them which constantly call them to lesser things. And, God, who knows the heart, draws near to men and women like this, taking them to that higher ground their hearts had longed for.  This is the beauty of Genesis 15:1 which says, "After these things" (after Abraham had let his nephew Lot take the "rich" Jordan Valley for his possession, and after Abram had refused to take anything from the kings he had delivered, lest they say they had make him rich) "the word of the LORD came to Abram in a vision, saying, 'Do not fear, Abram, I am a shield to you; your reward shall be very great."  If we have nothing else but God, we have everything, and blessed is the man who is satisfied with nothing else but God  This man is a free man.

Genesis 9:8-17 NASB

"Then the Lord spoke to Noah and to his sons with him, saying, 'Now behold, I Myself do establish My covenant with you, and with your descendants after you; and with every living creature that is with you... And I establish My covenant with you; and all flesh shall never again be cut off by the water of the flood...'  And God said, 'This is the sign of the covenant which I am making between Me and you... I set My bow in the cloud and it shall be for a sign of a covenant between Me and the earth...and I will remember My covenant... When the bow is in the cloud, then I will look upon it, to remember the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature...'  And God said to Noah, 'This is the sign of the covenant which I have established...

A horrible thing had happened in the land.  These were the worst of days, and the LORD, as the writer of Genesis records, "was grieved that he had made man on the earth, and His heart was filled with pain.  So the Lord said, 'I will wipe mankind, whom I have created, from the face of the earth.'"  But there was a man--another man, by the name of Noah, who, like Enoch, "walked with God", and he caught God's eye--"Noah found favor in the eyes of the LORD,"  (6:5-8 NIV).  It's an amazing thing; that one man can affect the heart of God in such a way that he can actually alter the future.  Try putting that in a nicely wrapped and well kept theology box.  Yancey speaks of this God as the One who is "wildly in love," and who will do anything for the one He loves.  We are here today because of this supreme moment between lovers--Noah and God.  And we still reap the benefits of this great love story.  Having escaped the horrors of God's anger on His own creation through a flood, as soon as Noah's feet hit the ground, there was another one of those moments between lovers:  "Then Noah built an alter to the LORD..."  and "The Lord smelled the pleasing aroma" and He promises Noah the world (8:20).  The words that follow are the words of "covenant", as in a marriage, and these are the wedding vows.  The beauty of the rainbow was not so much a sign for man, but a sign for God:  "Whenever the rainbow appears in the clouds, I will see it and remember the everlasting covenant..." (9:16 NIV)   "Never again will I curse the ground because of man, even though every inclination of his heart is evil from childhood," (8:21 NIV).  I like to think that God extends His great mercy to various places of the earth today because some humble and holy soul caught the eye of God.  The success of missions depends on these souls.  Who are you instrumental in saving because of your relationship with God?

Genesis 5:24 NASB

"And Enoch walked with God; and he was not, for God took him."

One of the greatest promises in the Word of God is that God can be known and wants to be known.  This is often seen in the observation and declaration of someone who “walked with God,” which, in its original form, was a word that revealed strong, volitional purpose and action.  But this was not one sided. God looked for hearts who were, for whatever reason, awakened to the eternal and He was more than ready to come alongside and walk with them, revealing again that what had been disrupted in the garden (the sound of God walking, Gen. 3:8), could be discovered again in grace. Is this possible? A man by the name of “Enoch”, along with many others, says it is:  “Enoch lived sixty-five years, and begot Methuselah. After he begot Methuselah, Enoch walked with God three hundred years, and had sons and daughters. So all the days of Enoch were three hundred and sixty-five years.”  A writer in the New Testament picks this thought up, in Hebrews 11:5, and says, “By faith Enoch was taken away so that he did not see death, and was not found, because God had taken him; for before he was taken he had this testimony, that he pleased God.” Look at the promise of this verse! It reveals something we have thought impossible as possible: that we can please God in this life, with our life, and throughout our life! Enoch did this for 300 years!  Though God didn’t set a precedent in taking Enoch before he died, He did make a point with Enoch, that it is possible to so please God in this life that we don’t have to wait for death to ready us for heaven.  He could be easily transferred because he was already transformed, doing what they do in heaven—walking with God. What a possibility with great promise! Enjoy the blessing of this kind of walk. God does.
 

Genesis 2:15-17 NASB

"Then the LORD God took the man and put him into the garden of Eden to cultivate it and keep it.  And the LORD God commanded the man saying, 'From any tree of the garden you may eat freely; but from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat from it you shall surely die.'"

When we think of the promises of God, we generally think of the positive promises, or promises that make us feel good.  But there are also "negative" promises, or promises that come as warnings.  We don't like to look at these as part of the promises of God, but they are promises nevertheless, and probably more redeeming than most promises because they are given out of the love and concern of God, for our eternal protection.   This is the great goodness of God toward us, that He would not leave us ignorant of the dangers along the way.  We may not note each of these "negative" promises throughout Scripture, but we would be doing an injustice to the Word of God if we didn't at least note a foundational one, that carries the weight of similar promises, coming to us as a divine warning for our own soul's sake.  This promise sets the stage for the drama of God's Word:  "Then the LORD God took the man and put him into the garden of Eden to cultivate it and keep it.  And the LORD God commanded the man saying, 'From any tree of the garden you may eat freely; but from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat from it you shall surely die.'"  We, of course, know what happened.  Man, historically, has not heeded the promise, or the fact, that "the wages of sin is death," and he has paid a huge price for this insistance to have his own way.  But the amazing thing about man's plunge into sin, as noted, beginning in Genesis 3, and revealed again and again, in God's Word, is that God plunges in after him.  The grand act of salvation is that God seeks to save us from our own destruction. The hymn writer put it well when he wrote, "Amazing grace!  How sweet the sound, that saved a wretch like me.  I once was lost, but now am found...was blind, but now I see!"  One more thing.  The foolishness of sin is to become obsessed with the one object that is off limits:  "of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat."  The wisdom and joy of the Christian life is to focus and feed on the abundance of what is ours in Him:  "From any tree of the garden you may eat freely."  We have more than enough!

Genesis 1:28-31 NASB

"And God blessed them; and God said to them, 'Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it; and rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky, and over every living thing that moves on the earth.'  Then God said, 'Behold, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is on the surface of all the earth, and every tree which has fruit yielding seed; it shall be food for you; and to every beast of the earth and to every bird of the sky and to every thing that moves on the earth which has life, I have given every green plan for food; and it was so.  And God saw all that He had made, and behold, it was very good."

The marvel of creation reveals both the heart and hand of God.  He made not only a world to look at and enjoy, but also a world to interact with and care for.  And, O how He cares!   Always remember that God, no matter how marred His creation, has not abandoned it.  He loves to interact with it and has promised to always care for it because we are His creation.  He simply doesn't walk away from something that He saw as "very good", but,  with a mind to restore, He, in Christ, came right into the midst of His creation, to dwell among us, forever demonstrating and declaring His unfailing presence, provision and promises.  As the old hymn says, "God will take care of you, thro' every day, o're all the way..."  Yes He will! 

Genesis 1:26a and 27a NASB

"Then God said, 'Let us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness...'  And God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them."

The whole of God's creation is a marvel of design, complexity, diversity, intricasy, intrigue, interest and care, but the greatest thing about His creation is our creation, in that God thought it was worth making someone like Himself. And the fact is, no matter how deeply sin marred that image, we still have in our soul the principle of life that God can still appeal to with the great truths of redemption, regeneration and restoration.  In this creation lies the promise of a new creation, for it was God who said,  “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness... So God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them."  He hasn't changed His mind.  This is what we are meant to be, and the rest of Scripture is a running commentary on the extent to which God would go to restore us again to His likeness, and the resounding optimism of God's grace that declares, "Yes He can!"  The greatest promise of God to any soul is that He can redeem!  He can regenerate!  He can restore!  Let's never diminish that possibility.  It has behind it the unfailing principles, presence, provision and promises of God.